Nelson-Atkins curator was fascinated with Dutch paintings as a child

Rima (RIM-uh) Girnius (GUR-nee-us) joined the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art last fall as associate curator of European painting and sculpture.

A Lithuanian and U.S. citizen, Girnius was raised in Munich and Prague before earning a bachelor’s in art history at Notre Dame and a masters and doctorate in Dutch painting at Bryn Mawr College. Previously, she was a curator at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.

She helped prepare the current exhibition, “Reflecting Class in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer,” which runs through May 29. This conversation took place on a walk-through of the exhibition.

Q: When were you first exposed to Dutch art?

A: I was about 10 years old and my family took a trip to Amsterdam for a long weekend. We went to a lot of museums. I remember seeing “The Night Watch” (by Rembrandt). There were also a lot of little blond girls in paintings. One was a portrait of a little girl in a blue dress by (Jan Cornelisz) Verspronck. I identified with something in these paintings. I felt at home in the Netherlands, and I connected to that art.

Q: This exhibition was curated by Ronni Baer at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. What is your role in mounting a show that originated at another museum?

A: A lot of small and big decisions have to be made. Here at the Nelson, I work with a team — there are education people and an exhibit designer and graphic designers to decide how everything will be presented and displayed. We produced the interactive exhibit based on the Jan Steen painting that people can take their picture with.

Q: Why did you make the walls so dark?

A: It’s dramatic. It brings out the works of art. We wanted to find colors that really allow these paintings to shine, and I think they look like beautiful jewels shimmering.

[Review: ‘Reflecting Class in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer’ showcases Dutch masterworks]

Q: What was it like unpacking these priceless masterpieces when they arrived in Kansas City?

A: Very exciting. They come in in massive crates, and as the workers lift the paintings out, there’s a courier who examines them and makes sure that everything is intact.

Some of the paintings I had seen before in person and some I had never seen. There’s one particular portrait of a noble woman that has never been seen in the United States (“Ermgard Elisabeth van Dorth” by Paulus Moreelse, 1624). It was commissioned by a family and had been shown in the family’s castle in the Netherlands for a really long time.

Q: The exhibition is drawing large crowds — what do you think is its main appeal?

A: It’s a great show for a number of reasons. The curator has gathered masterpieces, wonderful spectacular works of art from all over North America and Europe. At one point I counted, and out of 71 paintings, more than half of them are from Europe.

Dutch art is so fascinating because so much attention has been paid to rendering meticulously every nuance of texture and light.

Just look at this painting (“Jan Hinlopen and His Wife, Lucia Wijbrants” by Bartholomeus van der Helst) — how the satin is rendered, the slippery sheen of it, the gold and silver embroidery, these ostrich plumes on her stomach — it’s so tactile. It creates the sense of an immediate experience.

Photographs really don’t give full justice to how beautiful the works are. When you see them in person, it’s like being a kid in a candy store.

Q: You told me earlier that one of the important themes of this show is that you can’t take all these images at face value. Why not?

A: They do provide us with important information about Dutch society, and it’s important to know these sort of scenes, these paintings were primarily commissioned and purchased by the upper classes, so it’s their views and ideals and aspirations that are on display.

Even the paintings of the middle and lower classes depict the perceptions of the upper classes. Sometimes they are romanticized and sometimes they are caricatures, because you’ll see, for example, peasants vomiting from the window.

It was a way of validating a pre-existing social order. So the upper classes would look at these paintings of the lower classes and look upon them with a sense of superiority.

This story was originally published April 16, 2016 at 5:08 AM with the headline "Nelson-Atkins curator was fascinated with Dutch paintings as a child."