Tulpen voor Nicolaes

Tulpen voor Nicolaes
2019

Resin sculpture with tulips. The work ‘Tulips for Nicolaes’ is based on the painting:’ The anatomical lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp ‘, made by Rembrandt in 1632.

At first glance, this work comes across as ironic; tulips for a man that's called Tulip. It is because of the Golden Age in The Netherlands that it was possible for Dr. Nicolaes Tulp to come up with critical scientific finds. The same goes for why his contemporaries such as artist Rembrandt van Rijn could rise to such fame. however, there was a price they had to pay...
 
The wealth that made Dutch people able to expand and specialize didn't come out of nowhere. The slave trade, made profitable by the WIC, played a significant role in this. It is because of the Transatlantic Slave Trade that we can even speak of this "golden" century.
De anatomische les van Dr Nicolaes Tulp, Rembrandt van Rijn (1632)
The work tied with a toe tag and focused on a prominent limb of the corpse: the hand of Aris Kindt shows a downside of this wealth: the people that became a victim to those riches. Kindt execution was for an armed robbery. The same day of his death also became the day Rembrandt painted his dead body. Without his permission, he is forever immortalized in this state.

This work: cynical in the greeting but powerful in its material; in resin the tulips will remain fresh forever - makes you think. Aesthetically beautiful, it depicts a morbid subject like the original — tulips for Dr. Tulp, but also Kindt; the flowers for his grave forever in his wrist.

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