In late May this year, Jeangu Macrooy was in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, performing his song Birth of a New Age. The music video was shot partly in the Rijksmuseum. Jeangu experienced a goosebump moment when he was 19 and stood face to face with The Night Watch for the first time.

My Night Watch

I can still remember that goosebump moment I had when I saw The Night Watch for the first time. It was because of the sheer quality, I think, as well as the impressive size. I was 19, and on a visit to the Netherlands. The Rijksmuseum was high on the list of places I wanted to visit – I was going to move permanently from Suriname to the Netherlands a year later and was still deciding whether I should go to the art academy or the conservatory.

In the end I chose to study music, but my first big dream was really to become a visual artist. My mother told me that when we were small my twin brother and I were always drawing. In my teens, I attended the youth course at the Nola Hatterman Art Academy in Suriname. I was taught there by the artist Cliff San A Jong, whose work is on show now in the Surinamese School exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

I do still enjoy the beauty of The Night Watch. I admire it as a masterpiece, but feel less of a connection with the scene it depicts. Coming from Suriname, you think, “That is not part of my cultural background”. All those seventeenth-century paintings are about displays of wealth, and what you do not see in them is that the wealth came from slavery. It is good that the Rijksmuseum is now creating space for that as well.

Photo by Rinse Fokkema