Digital exhibition guide on Rembrandt
Rembrandt - De Etser
Secrets of Rembrandt 1
Read Before You Look
The online Rembrandt publication by Michiel Kersten, Rembrandt - De Etser / Rembrandt - The Etcher (not yet available in English), is unique. Rather than buying a heavy, printed museum catalogue after seeing the exhibition, museumvisitors are now encouraged to download a digital guide before their museum visit.
Reading a digital book before a museum visit is better for both visitor as well as the museum. When looking at an exhibition, adults will feel less confused and will feel better prepared, while museums would also benefit by offering a greater museum experience. Less reading during the visit delays museum fatigue.
Adults also feel confused in a museum!
Hitherto museums devoted a lot of effort to producing materials for pre-visit learning by kids and students. But hardly anything is done for the large group of adults who visit museums.
International research cleary shows that adults need help when they visit a museum. See for instance the Read Before You Look research done in Spring 2013.
Teylers Museum is now offering its museum visitors to download an exhibition guide prior to their museum visit. This is entirely new in museumland..! Interestingly, Teylers is the oldest museum in The Netherlands, so it is remarkable that they have embarked on collaborating with publisher Liesbeth Heenk and author Michiel Kersten for this e-book. Hopefully the Dutch are ready for a downloading experience.
Rembrandt - The Etcher
Rembrandt - The Etcher by Michiel Kersten is an easy-to-understand but very engaging way to get introduced to the great beauty of Rembrandt etchings. Looking at Rembrandt is like slow food: only by looking for a long period of time at the wealth of details displayed in Rembrandt's etchings, you will discover why he was regarded the very best of etchers in history.
The e-book is richly illustrated and contains no annoying art historical jargon. Rather than writing for fellow art historians, Michiel Kersten had in mind to show the beauty of Rembrandt's etchings to the general public. Hope you will enjoy!
The e-book is avialable in Dutch on www.secretsofrembrandt.com as a PDF, but is expected to be available at amazon in English by November 2013.
Author & Publisher
Who is Who?
Liesbeth Heenk
Art historian, author and publisher (LH-Sites). With over twenty years of experience in the museum (Kroller-Muller Museum, British Museum, Complesso del Vittoriano) and auction world (Christie's London and Sotheby's Amsterdam) Liesbeth Heenk started her own business in 2009.
Fascinated by Van Gogh - she wrote her PhD on his drawings in 1995 - she started writing or commissioning the first three books in the series 'Secrets of Van Gogh': The 1-Hour Van Gogh Book, Van Gogh's Inner Struggle and Van Gogh Today. By reading the books before you actually look at Van Gogh, she hopes to open your eyes to the extraordinary beauty of this artist.
Heenk also ventured into publishing e-books for museums. This series 'Amsterdam Museum Ebooks' can be found on Amazon. For the Rembrandt exhibition at Teylers Museum she collaborated with Rembrandt specialist Michiel Kersten.
Who is Who?
Michiel Kersten
Art historian, Rembrandt specialist, and author of various publications and exhibition catalogues on 17th century Dutch art, in particular Vermeer and Rembrandt. Michiel Kersten worked at the Print Room of the University of Leiden, the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, and at the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam.
Michiel Kersten's Rembrandt - The Etcher gives an excellent introduction to the Rembrandt exhibition at Teylers Museum in Haarlem.