Hans de Bruijn: De ruïne van het geboortehuis van Rembrandt in Leiden

Abstract

It is 2006: Rembrandt was born 400 years ago. Hans de Bruijn paints an ode to the great master in the form of the ruins of his birth house in Leiden, which was carelessly demolished. For De Bruijn, the ruins of Rembrandt's birthplace are the symptom of a general cultural decline and this concept was at the origin of this book. But De Bruijn's culturally critical ruin in Leiden is not alone. Art is also suffering badly elsewhere, in the words of H.J.A. Hofland (in NRC Handelsblad of 5 May 2011): We have gradually become accustomed to the systematic abuse of public art in Amsterdam, but it is a national scandal. First the continuously failing mega-expansion of the Stedelijk, the new entrance, the 'Bathtub' with which we let ourselves be sold a tuber for a lemon, the 'wandering museum' of which we hear nothing more, the bankruptcy of the contractor, postponement after postponement of the reopening, and in the meantime the collection has already been inaccessible for half a generation