Display from the Rijksmuseum opens at Ireland's National Gallery 

Remarkable art from Rijksmuseum at National Gallery show, says Des O'Sullivan 

Aelbert Cuyp's 'View of Dordrecht', c1650. 

RICH pickings are on offer for art lovers at summer exhibitions in Dublin, ranging from remarkable drawings on loan from the Rijksmuseum at the National Gallery of Ireland, to an artistic examination of the science fiction of the present at IMMA.

Intimate insights into 17th-century life in the Netherlands can be seen at Dutch Drawings: Highlights from the Rijksmuseum which opens at the National Gallery today.

This rare loan exhibition selected from the world renowned collection in Amsterdam offers 48 works by 31 different artists, including Rembrandt, Hendrick Avercamp, Nicolaes Berchem, Jacob van Ruisdael, Gerard ter Boch, Ferdinand Bol and Albert Cuyp.

'Two fishermen by a ditch' by Hendrick Avercamp.

This show offers Irish audiences a unique opportunity to view at close quarters a variety of works and subjects, including plants and animals, daily life, portraits, architecture and landscape.

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This art conveys a strong sense of life as it was then lived then was like and drawing was a portable and inexpensive medium to record daily existence.

There are differing techniques with works in graphite, ink, watercolour, chalks, etchings and woodcuts plus a small number of prints by Rembrandt.

The exhibition shows artists striving to understand the world around them.

It continues at the National Gallery until November 6.

Xenogenesis at IMMA centres on artistic insights into the modern world.

'A shepherd with sheep near a dead tree' by Abraham Bloemaert

On show is a cross section of works produced between 2022 and 2018 by The Otolith Group, a London-based collective founded in 2002 by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun.

Otoliths are bodies in the inner ear involved with sensing gravity and movement.

These pioneering artworks utilising film, video and multi-screen installations address contemporary, social and planetary issues, the disruptions of neo-colonialism, the way in which humans have impacted the earth and the influence of new technology on consciousness.

Xenogenesis (the production of an organism unlike the parent) reflects the commitment by the artists to creating what they think of as “a science fiction of the present: through images, voices, sounds and performance.

Rembrandt van Rijn's 'Self-portrait with beret, wide eyed', 1630 (etching).

Themes are both universal and relevant to contemporary life.

IMMA director and curator of the exhibition Annie Fletcher said: “The Otolith Group’s films and installations address the forces and events that have shaped our world while offering inspiring examples and models of how we might collectively imagine a different future.”