REMBRANDT
ETCHINGS PORTRAITS BIBLICAL SCENES MYTHOLOGY LANDSCAPES AMSTERDAM
ETCHINGS FROM HOLLANDS GOLDEN
CENTURY
SOFTBOUND BOOK in ENGLISH by
STEVE KERN
REMBRANDTS MOTHER WITH HER HAND
ON HER CHEST
JAN CORNELISZ SYLVIUS, PREACHER
THE FOURTH ORIENTAL HEAD
YOUNG MAN IN A VELVET CAP
SELF-PORTRAIT, ETCHING AT A
WINDOW
MAN IN HIGH HAT
YOUNG MAN WEARING A PLUMED HAT
LADY WITH PLUMED HAT
PORTRAIT OF A MAN IN A PLUMED
HAT
CHRIST DRIVING THE MONEY
CHANGERS FROM THE TEMPLE
THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON
THE REST ON THE FLIGHT INTO
EGYPT
CHRIST PREACHING (La PETITE
TOMBE)
SAINT JEROME
THE HOLY FAMILY
JUDAH AND TAMAR
DIANA BATHING
THE MARRIAGE OF JASON AND CREUSA
THE THREE TREES
LANDSCAPE WITH A WOMAN ON A
DONKEY
THE LITTLE BRIDGE
AUGUST
THE STROLLING MUSICIANS
BEGGARS RECEIVING ALMS AT THE
DOOR OF A HOUSE
MAN WITH ONE HAND THRUST INTO
HIS DOUBLET
SHEPHERD
LEOPARD
GOAT
BAKER SOUNDING HIS HORN
MAN LEANING ON HIS DOOR
CHILD REACHING FOR A DOLL
MAIDEN FROM ZIJPE
THE VILLAGE FAIR
-----------------------------------
Additional Information from
Internet Encyclopedia
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15
July 1606 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch
Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific
master in three media, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual
artists in the history of art and the most important in Dutch art history. It
is estimated Rembrandt produced a total of about three hundred paintings, three
hundred etchings and two thousand drawings.
Unlike most Dutch masters of the
17th century, Rembrandt's works depict a wide range of styles and subject
matter, from portraits and self-portraits to landscapes, genre scenes,
allegorical and historical scenes, biblical and mythological themes and animal
studies. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural
achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age, when Dutch art
(especially Dutch painting), whilst antithetical to the Baroque style that
dominated Europe, was prolific and innovative. This era gave rise to important
new genres. Like many artists of the Dutch Golden Age, such as Jan Vermeer,
Rembrandt was an avid art collector and dealer.
Rembrandt never went abroad but
was considerably influenced by the work of the Italian masters and Dutch
artists who had studied in Italy, like Pieter Lastman, the Utrecht
Caravaggists, and Peter Paul Rubens. After he achieved youthful success as a
portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years were marked by personal tragedy and
financial hardships. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his
lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, and for twenty years he
taught many important Dutch painters.
Rembrandt's portraits of his contemporaries,
self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible are regarded as his
greatest creative triumphs. His 40 self-portraits form an intimate
autobiography. Rembrandt's foremost contribution in the history of printmaking
was his transformation of the etching process from a relatively new
reproductive technique into an art form. His reputation as the greatest etcher
in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime. Few of his
paintings left the Dutch Republic while he lived but his prints were circulated
throughout Europe, and his wider reputation was initially based on them alone.
In his works, he exhibited
knowledge of classical iconography. A depiction of a biblical scene was
informed by Rembrandt's knowledge of the specific text, his assimilation of
classical composition, and his observations of Amsterdam's Jewish population.
Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called "one of
the great prophets of civilization". The French sculptor Auguste Rodin
said, "Compare me with Rembrandt! What sacrilege! With Rembrandt, the
colossus of Art! We should prostrate ourselves before Rembrandt and never
compare anyone with him!"
Early life and education
Rembrandt[a] Harmenszoon van
Rijn was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, now the
Netherlands. He was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and
Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuijtbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do; his
father was a miller and his mother was a baker's daughter. His mother was
Catholic, and his father belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church. Religion is a
central theme in Rembrandt's works and the religiously fraught period in which
he lived makes his faith a matter of interest.
As a boy, he attended a Latin
school. At the age of 13, he was enrolled at the University of Leiden, although
according to a contemporary he had a greater inclination towards painting; he
was soon apprenticed to Jacob van Swanenburg, with whom he spent three years.
After a brief but important apprenticeship of six months with the history
painter Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam, Rembrandt stayed a few months with Jacob
Pynas and then started his own workshop, though Simon van Leeuwen claimed that
Joris van Schooten taught Rembrandt in Leiden. Unlike many of his
contemporaries who traveled to Italy as part of their artistic training,
Rembrandt never left the Dutch Republic during his lifetime.
Career
Rembrandt lived at Amstel river
almost next to Kloveniersdoelen where the Night Watch was exhibited for years;
painting by Jan Ekels the Elder (1775)
Rembrandt's house at
Jodenbreestraat by Cornelis Springer (1853); in the back the Zuiderkerk where
his children were buried.
In 1624 or 1625, Rembrandt
opened a studio in Leiden, which he shared with friend and colleague Jan
Lievens. In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, which included Gerrit Dou
in 1628 and Isaac de Jouderville. In 1629, Rembrandt was discovered by the
statesman Constantijn Huygens who procured for Rembrandt important commissions
from the court of The Hague. As a result of this connection, Prince Frederik
Hendrik continued to purchase paintings from Rembrandt until 1646.
At the end of 1631, Rembrandt
moved to Amsterdam, a city rapidly expanding as the business and trade capital.
He began to practice as a professional portraitist for the first time, with
great success. He initially stayed with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh,
and in 1634, married Hendrick's cousin, Saskia van Uylenburgh. Saskia (or
Sasha) came from a respected family: her father Rombertus was a lawyer and had
been burgomaster (mayor) of Leeuwarden. The couple married in the local church
of St. Annaparochie without the presence of Rembrandt's relatives. In the same
year, Rembrandt became a citizen of Amsterdam and a member of the local guild
of painters. He also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol
and Govert Flinck.
In 1635, Rembrandt and Saskia
rented a fashionable lodging with a view of the river. In 1639 they moved to a
large and recently modernized house in the upscale 'Breestraat' with artists
and art dealers; Nicolaes Pickenoy, a portrait painter was his neighbor. The
mortgage to finance the 13,000 guilder purchase would be a cause for later
financial difficulties. The neighborhood sheltered many immigrants and was
becoming the Jewish quarter. It was there that Rembrandt frequently sought his
Jewish neighbors to model for his Old Testament scenes.
Although they were by now
affluent, the couple suffered several personal setbacks; their son Rumbartus
died two months after his birth and their daughter Cornelia died at just three
weeks of age. A second daughter, also named Cornelia, died after living barely
over a month. Only their fourth child, Titus, who was born in 1641, survived
into adulthood. Five of his children were christened in Dutch Reformed churches
in Amsterdam: four in the Old Church and one, Titus, in the Southern Church.
Saskia died in 1642, probably
from tuberculosis. Rembrandt's drawings of her on her sick and death bed are
among his most moving works, and delivered David and Jonathan. During Saskia's
illness, Geertje Dircx was hired as Titus' caretaker and dry nurse; at some
time she also became Rembrandt's lover. In 1649 she left and charged Rembrandt
with breach of promise (a euphemism for seduction under [breached] promise to
marry) and be awarded alimony.[23] Rembrandt tried to settle the matter
amicably but she pawned the ring he had given her that once belonged to Saskia
to maintain her livelihood. The court particularly stated that Rembrandt had to
pay a maintenance allowance, provided that Titus remained her only heir and she
sold none of Rembrandt's possessions. In 1650 Rembrandt paid for the travel
costs to have her committed to an asylum or almshouse at Gouda.
In early 1649 Rembrandt began a
relationship with the much younger Hendrickje Stoffels, who had initially been
his maid. She may have been the cause that Geertje left. In July 1654 she was
pregnant, and received a summons from the Reformed Church to answer the charge
"that she had committed the acts of a whore with Rembrandt the
painter". She admitted and was banned from receiving communion. Rembrandt
was not summoned to appear for the Church council; while his work reveals deep
Christian faith, there is no evidence that Rembrandt formally belonged to any
church. In October they had a daughter, Cornelia but Rembrandt had not married
Hendrickje. Had he remarried he would have lost access to a trust set up for
Titus in Saskia's will.
In a letter to Huygens, Rembrandt
offered the only surviving explanation of what he sought to achieve through his
art, writing that, "the greatest and most natural movement",
translated from de meeste en de natuurlijkste beweegelijkheid. The word
"beweegelijkheid" translates to "emotion" or
"motive". Whether this refers to objectives, material, or something
else, is not known but critics have drawn particular attention to the way
Rembrandt seamlessly melded the earthly and spiritual.
Earlier 20th century
connoisseurs claimed Rembrandt had produced well over 600 paintings, nearly 400
etchings and 2,000 drawings. More recent scholarship, from the 1960s to the
present day (led by the Rembrandt Research Project), often controversially, has
winnowed his oeuvre to nearer 300 paintings. His prints, traditionally all
called etchings, although many are produced in whole or part by engraving and
sometimes drypoint, have a much more stable total of slightly under 300.[g] It
is likely Rembrandt made many more drawings in his lifetime than 2,000 but
those extant are more rare than presumed. Two experts claim that the number of
drawings whose autograph status can be regarded as effectively
"certain" is no higher than about 75, although this is disputed. The
list was to be unveiled at a scholarly meeting in February 2010.
At one time, approximately 90
paintings were counted as Rembrandt self-portraits but it is now known that he
had his students copy his own self-portraits as part of their training. Modern
scholarship has reduced the autograph count to over forty paintings, as well as
a few drawings and thirty-one etchings, which include many of the most
remarkable images of the group.[67] Some show him posing in quasi-historical
fancy dress, or pulling faces at himself. His oil paintings trace the progress
from an uncertain young man, through the dapper and very successful
portrait-painter of the 1630s, to the troubled but massively powerful portraits
of his old age. Together they give a remarkably clear picture of the man, his
appearance and his psychological make-up, as revealed by his richly weathered
face.
In his portraits and
self-portraits, he angles the sitter's face in such a way that the ridge of the
nose nearly always forms the line of demarcation between brightly illuminated
and shadowy areas. A Rembrandt face is a face partially eclipsed; and the nose,
bright and obvious, thrusting into the riddle of halftones, serves to focus the
viewer's attention upon, and to dramatize, the division between a flood of
lightan overwhelming clarityand a brooding duskiness.
In a number of biblical works,
including The Raising of the Cross, Joseph Telling His Dreams, and The Stoning
of Saint Stephen, Rembrandt painted himself as a character in the crowd. Durham
suggests that this was because the Bible was for Rembrandt "a kind of
diary, an account of moments in his own life".
Among the more prominent
characteristics of Rembrandt's work are his use of chiaroscuro, the theatrical
employment of light and shadow derived from Caravaggio, or, more likely, from
the Dutch Caravaggisti but adapted for very personal means.[70] Also notable
are his dramatic and lively presentation of subjects, devoid of the rigid
formality that his contemporaries often displayed, and a deeply felt compassion
for mankind, irrespective of wealth and age. His immediate familyhis wife
Saskia, his son Titus and his common-law wife Hendrickjeoften figured
prominently in his paintings, many of which had mythical, biblical or
historical themes.
Throughout his career, Rembrandt
took as his primary subjects the themes of portraiture, landscape and narrative
painting. For the last, he was especially praised by his contemporaries, who
extolled him as a masterly interpreter of biblical stories for his skill in
representing emotions and attention to detail.[73] Stylistically, his paintings
progressed from the early "smooth" manner, characterized by fine
technique in the portrayal of illusionistic form, to the late "rough"
treatment of richly variegated paint surfaces, which allowed for an illusionism
of form suggested by the tactile quality of the paint itself. Rembrandt must
have realized that if he kept the paint deliberately loose and
"paint-like" on some parts of the canvas, the perception of space
became much greater.
A parallel development may be seen
in Rembrandt's skill as a printmaker. In the etchings of his maturity,
particularly from the late 1640s onward, the freedom and breadth of his
drawings and paintings found expression in the print medium as well. The works
encompass a wide range of subject matter and technique, sometimes leaving large
areas of white paper to suggest space, at other times employing complex webs of
line to produce rich dark tones.
Lastman's influence on Rembrandt
was most prominent during his period in Leiden from 1625 to 1631.[76] Paintings
were rather small but rich in details (for example, in costumes and jewelry).
Religious and allegorical themes were favored, as were tronies.[76] In 1626
Rembrandt produced his first etchings, the wide dissemination of which would
largely account for his international fame.[76] In 1629 he completed Judas
Repentant, Returning the Pieces of Silver and The Artist in His Studio, works
that evidence his interest in the handling of light and variety of paint
application, and constitute the first major progress in his development as a
painter.
During his early years in
Amsterdam (16321636), Rembrandt began to paint dramatic biblical and
mythological scenes in high contrast and of large format (The Blinding of
Samson, 1636, Belshazzar's Feast, c. 1635 Danaƫ, 1636 but reworked later),
seeking to emulate the baroque style of Rubens.[78] With the occasional help of
assistants in Uylenburgh's workshop, he painted numerous portrait commissions
both small (Jacob de Gheyn III) and large (Portrait of the Shipbuilder Jan
Rijcksen and his Wife, 1633, Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632).
By the late 1630s, Rembrandt had
produced a few paintings and many etchings of landscapes. Often these
landscapes highlighted natural drama, featuring uprooted trees and ominous
skies (Cottages before a Stormy Sky, c. 1641; The Three Trees, 1643). From 1640
his work became less exuberant and more sober in tone, possibly reflecting
personal tragedy. Biblical scenes were now derived more often from the New
Testament than the Old Testament, as had been the case before. In 1642 he
painted The Night Watch, the most substantial of the important group portrait
commissions which he received in this period, and through which he sought to
find solutions to compositional and narrative problems that had been attempted
in previous works.
In the decade following the
Night Watch, Rembrandt's paintings varied greatly in size, subject, and style.
The previous tendency to create dramatic effects primarily by strong contrasts
of light and shadow gave way to the use of frontal lighting and larger and more
saturated areas of color. Simultaneously, figures came to be placed parallel to
the picture plane. These changes can be seen as a move toward a classical mode
of composition and, considering the more expressive use of brushwork as well,
may indicate a familiarity with Venetian art (Susanna and the Elders,
163747).[81] At the same time, there was a marked decrease in painted works in
favor of etchings and drawings of landscapes.[82] In these graphic works
natural drama eventually made way for quiet Dutch rural scenes.
In the 1650s, Rembrandt's style
changed again. Colors became richer and brush strokes more pronounced. With
these changes, Rembrandt distanced himself from earlier work and current
fashion, which increasingly inclined toward fine, detailed works. His use of
light becomes more jagged and harsh, and shine becomes almost nonexistent. His
singular approach to paint application may have been suggested in part by
familiarity with the work of Titian, and could be seen in the context of the
then current discussion of 'finish' and surface quality of paintings.
Contemporary accounts sometimes remark disapprovingly of the coarseness of
Rembrandt's brushwork, and the artist himself was said to have dissuaded
visitors from looking too closely at his paintings.[83] The tactile
manipulation of paint may hearken to medieval procedures, when mimetic effects
of rendering informed a painting's surface. The result is a richly varied
handling of paint, deeply layered and often apparently haphazard, which
suggests form and space in both an illusory and highly individual manner.
In later years, biblical themes
were often depicted but emphasis shifted from dramatic group scenes to intimate
portrait-like figures (James the Apostle, 1661). In his last years, Rembrandt
painted his most deeply reflective self-portraits (from 1652 to 1669 he painted
fifteen), and several moving images of both men and women (The Jewish Bride, c.
1666)in love, in life, and before God.
Rembrandt produced etchings for
most of his career, from 1626 to 1660, when he was forced to sell his
printing-press and practically abandoned etching. Only the troubled year of
1649 produced no dated work. He took easily to etching and, though he learned
to use a burin and partly engraved many plates, the freedom of etching
technique was fundamental to his work. He was very closely involved in the
whole process of printmaking, and must have printed at least early examples of
his etchings himself. At first he used a style based on drawing but soon moved
to one based on painting, using a mass of lines and numerous bitings with the
acid to achieve different strengths of line. Towards the end of the 1630s, he
reacted against this manner and moved to a simpler style, with fewer bitings.
He worked on the so-called Hundred Guilder Print in stages throughout the
1640s, and it was the "critical work in the middle of his career",
from which his final etching style began to emerge. Although the print only
survives in two states, the first very rare, evidence of much reworking can be
seen underneath the final print and many drawings survive for elements of it.
In the mature works of the
1650s, Rembrandt was more ready to improvise on the plate and large prints
typically survive in several states, up to eleven, often radically changed. He
now used hatching to create his dark areas, which often take up much of the
plate. He also experimented with the effects of printing on different kinds of
paper, including Japanese paper, which he used frequently, and on vellum. He
began to use "surface tone," leaving a thin film of ink on parts of
the plate instead of wiping it completely clean to print each impression. He
made more use of drypoint, exploiting, especially in landscapes, the rich fuzzy
burr that this technique gives to the first few impressions.
His prints have similar subjects
to his paintings, although the 27 self-portraits are relatively more common,
and portraits of other people less so. The landscapes, mostly small, largely
set the course for the graphic treatment of landscape until the end of the 19th
century. Of the many hundreds of drawings Rembrandt made, only about two
hundred have a landscape motif as their subject, and of the approximately three
hundred etchings, about thirty show a landscape. As for his painted landscapes,
one does not even get beyond eight works. One third of his etchings are of
religious subjects, many treated with a homely simplicity, whilst others are
his most monumental prints. A few erotic, or just obscene, compositions have no
equivalent in his paintings. He owned, until forced to sell it, a magnificent
collection of prints by other artists, and many borrowings and influences in
his work can be traced to artists as diverse as Mantegna, Raphael, Hercules
Seghers, and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione.
Drawings
by Rembrandt and his pupils/followers have been extensively studied by many
artists and scholars through the centuries. His original draughtsmanship has
been described as an individualistic art style that was very similar to East
Asian old masters, most notably Chinese masters: a "combination of formal
clarity and calligraphic vitality in the movement of pen or brush that is
closer to Chinese painting in technique and feeling than to anything in
European art before the twentieth century".