Hendrik Kerstens: Paula

“One day Paula came back from horseback riding. She took off her cap
and I was struck by the image of her hair held together by a hair-net.
It reminded me of the portraits by the Dutch masters and I portrayed
her in that fashion. After that I started to do more portraits in which
I refer to the paintings of that era. The thing that fascinates me in
particular is the way a seventeenth-century painting is seen as a
surface which can be read as a description of everyday life as opposed
to the paintings of the Italian Renaissance, which usually tell a
story. Northern European painting relies much more on craftsmanship and
the perfect rendition of the subject. The use of light is instrumental
in this.”