Rembrandt in Detroit

This is a big deal.

Back in the day, sitting in art history class, I always sat up a little straighter when Rembrandt popped up on ye olde overhead projector. After suffering through units on French Impressionism that made me hate water lilies, and for a time the French, here was some damn ART. Rembrandt did gritty reboots centuries before Christopher Nolan was born.

And now, for the first time since the 1930s, one of Rembrandt's masterpieces, The Supper at Emmaus, is on U.S. soil and on the wall at the Detroit Institute of Arts as part of a new exhibition running through February called Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus. There are about five dozen works from the master and his students, primarily etchings and drawings, but the stars of the show are The Supper and the portrait Head of Jesus

The Supper at Emmaus, on loan from a little outfit you might know as the Louvre, was recently cleaned by meticulous French people, making up for their water lilies. They removed seven layers of varnish, meaning that the painting on display is, for the first time in centuries, able to be seen as it was intended by Rembrandt.

Go here for more info and for a coupon saving you $6 off admittance, which is only $16 as is.