To Wiersma’s good luck, Dutch masters of the 17th century kept records of their artworks' processes and paint recipes. “I knew in advance that I would hate myself for doing it,” she says, laughing, “but I am a naive optimist so I always start with ‘yeah, let’s try’ and then always a point comes where I feel overwhelmed, especially with The Night Watch.” The kindness of the artist When the producers of the show approached Wiersma in 2021 to recreate Rembrandt’s most famous work, which depicts an Amsterdam militia marching through the city, she knew what to expect and demanded a team to help her from the first day. This way, you can work on more than one painting at a time.” you do it layer by layer, letting each layer rest and dry, which might take a week or more per layer. “Doing this, you learn that drawing a painting doesn’t necessarily have to take months or years. Undoubtedly, Bruegel’s Tower of Babel (c.1568) was one of the most challenging to recreate among them. In 2020, she recreated eight famous works by Dutch artists from different eras, working on several of them simultaneously. “By recreating the fantastic paintings that the public loves, we can really answer the question, 'how did a master manage to achieve this?' With this meticulous attention to technique, the art historian and researcher didn’t hesitate to accept the opportunity of recreating masterpieces on a full-time basis for the show. Photo: Het Geheim van de Meester / Avrotros Lisa Wiersma says the work was reproduced in layers. “I chose this topic for my PhD thesis because grapes are one of the most complex paintings of the 17th century, as they required nine layers of paint: a ground colour, a reflection of light, a refraction of light in the translucent grape, the gloss, the haziness in it, and others.” © Provided by The National “I had been too busy painting grapes for a while at the time,” she says. When she was approached to be the lead painter of The Secret of the Master in 2020, Wiersma was researching how fruits, particularly grapes, were painted in the 17th century. “It was the point when I dared to admit that I wanted to become an artist, after believing for years that the contemporary art world is very different from what I do and what I am interested in.” 'I knew I'd hate myself for doing it' “That’s how I hopped on the technical art history’s train,” she says. He also referred her to a painter, who gave her painting lessons. In 2009, her life took a turn when a professor at UvA asked her to assist him in teaching a new technical art history course. Luckily for young Wiersma, around the time that she started her graduate studies, technical art history was gaining popularity at her alma mater. “I was reluctant to take this step because it was indeed a quite theoretical track, and I wondered if I should still be engaging with art at all, or if there was something else for me.” Trying to figure out her next move, she joined the University of Amsterdam (UvA) to study art history. Realising how detached she was from contemporary art, she decided at that point that she no longer wanted to become an artist. It wasn’t a classical but rather a very conceptual art academy, so I should have seen that one coming,” Wiersma laughs as she recalls, “Six months later, I quit.”
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“I wanted to learn how to paint with oil paint, but was told at the Academy that it was way too difficult, and that they will not teach it. Her journey with the Academy was short lived, however. Photo: Sarah HassanĪ drawing enthusiast since her childhood, she joined the Art Academy in Amsterdam after graduating from high school. © Provided by The Nationalĭutch artist and art historian Lisa Wiersma stands in front of Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch' at the Rijksmuseum. In fact, it wasn’t until her late 20s that she started using oil paint. Wiersma had not recreated an entire painting before participating in the show. The programme is dedicated to giving its audience the opportunity to witness as accurately as possible how famous Dutch masterpieces have been created, using the original techniques and even old paint ingredients where possible.įor the fifth season of the show, which airs in the Netherlands on January 25, Wiersma, 36, has undertaken the challenge of recreating the jewel on the Dutch Golden Age’s crown: Rembrandt’s The Night Watch (c.1642), in its full, original size.
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Wiersma has recreated Vermeer’s masterpiece, alongside eight others, in under two years for the Dutch TV show Masterpiece. Ever looked at a classic painting and asked yourself with astonishment: “How did the painter do it?” Dutch painter and art historian Lisa Wiersma knows the answer to that question when it comes to Dutch masterpieces.Īfter all, her recreation of Johannes Vermeer's The Milkmaid (c.1660) made none less than the director of the Rijksmuseum hesitate for a moment when asked which one was Vermeer’s and which one hers.