Friday, June 16, 2006

Rembrandt and learning

Had a lovely few days in Amsterdam and the Hague with a few friends last week and came across this wonderful Rembrandt. He was a cute observer. Not one of the learners is looking at the dissected arm. The top two are disinterested, eyeing you (the viewer) up, a couple are straining to look at the book and another staring off into space, lost in thought, only one is looking and listening to the teacher. What a wonderful study of learning in practice.

Suddenly an English Art Tour arrived, pushing me to one side as their guide started to unravel the secrets of this Rembrandt. I looked around and sure enough, few were listening; some were lost in thought, others talking to their friends, some looking at others in the group and gallery, one trying to work his camera and so on. Rembrandt was showing us how inefficient the lecture was 350 years ago!

3 comments:

Mark Frank said...

Nice observation but, at the risk being a pedant, I think you mean "uninterested" not "disinterested". Which illustrates one of the dangers of text as learning medium.

Donald Clark said...

Well spotted. One of the joys of blogging is ease of publishing. This sometimkes produce sloppy writing! Although, interestingly, only two of the obesrvers in this painting had any professional interest in medicine - so 'disinterested' is wholly credible - albeit by accident!

Anonymous said...

Hi Donald

As I understood it, the anatomist, Professor Tulp is looking out at a further audience as well.

I have a remarkably low grammatical comprehension favouring the 'stick a comma here and there approach.... and the odd colon'...and fully blame everyone who was involved in my educational wellbeing. Please dont flame me.

Jo
(niece in singapore)

b.t.w

Just got my first show comissioned by AXN (GOT WHEELS-) and heard today my documentary on Cannibals has been approved by Nat Geo so I may well have achieved something there.