REMBRANDT (REMBRANDT HARMENSZOGN VAN RIJN OR VAN RIJJN). — Painter and etcher, born in Leiden on 15 July 1606, son of Harmen Gerritsz, owner of a mill on the Rhine, whence the name of the family van Rijn, with which R. always signs his paintings; died in Amsterdam on 4 October 1609. He is the greatest Dutch painter and one of the greatest in the world.
(photograph from the Museum)
REMBRANDT (REMBRANDT HARMENSZOGN VAN RIJN O VAN RIJJN) - The Night Watch (after the 1930 restoration) - Amsterdam, State Museum.
Both Dou and Lievens continued to be strongly influenced by R., though in an external sense. The first dated works are from 1626: the Tobias in Moscow, The Prophet Balaam in the Cognacq-Lay Museum in Paris, small panels executed with a minute, clear, and delicate technique; in St. Paul in Prison (1627) in the Stuttgart Museum, in the Usurer in Berlin, in the Old Man Asleep (1629) in Turin, in Jeremiah Mourning the Destruction of Jerusalem (1630), in the Stroganoff Collection in Leningrad, in the Reading Hermit in the Louvre, in St. Anastasius in Stockholm, and in the Presentation in the Temple (1631) in the Hague Museum, there is already the characteristic manner of violent illumination that would later be transfigured into magical, phantasmagorical light; against the brown tonality of the background, vibrations of light are aroused by small brushstrokes. In 1631 R. left Leiden and settled in Amsterdam. From the following year dates the painting that immediately became famous: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (The Hague, Mauritshuis), a subject not new in Dutch painting (The Lesson of Dr. Sebastian Egbertsz around a Skeleton by T. Keyser is from 1619, and the Theatrum anatomicum by Mierveelt from 1617). In R.’s work, the figures of the seven physicians are seven powerful portraits which, although they reflect the Rubensian manner, possess such immediate sincerity that they immediately placed the still very young R. in the forefront among the portraitists of his country, which nonetheless already boasted artists of great renown in this genre, such as Thomas de Keyser; the composition as a whole, in the arrangement of the figures, shows an undeniable knowledge of Caravaggio, explained by the proximity of Honthorst, Baburen, and Terbruggen, the latter having returned from Rome in 1614.
From the same period as the Anatomy Lesson are the Portrait of a Scholar in Leningrad and the Portrait of Coppenol in Kassel, as well as many other portraits approaching Keyser’s more sophisticated manner, whereas the earlier ones, dating from the Leiden period, have a vigorous and dramatic chiaroscuro and subtle effects of vibrantly luminous light that are genuinely Rembrandtesque (Self-Portrait in Kassel, Totha, Lemberg, Byfleet, Boston, Budapest, Braunschweig, The Hague). There are many portraits of his father and mother and, from 1632 onward, of his wife Saskja, whom the artist loved to portray in richly sumptuous garments, just as he sometimes adorned himself in strange and pompous costumes in his self-portraits (Self-Portrait in The Hague, Kassel, Vienna, Lichtenstein Collection, etc.). Among the best-known portraits of his wife are those in the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris, the Dresden Museum, Kassel, Pittsburg, and the double portrait The Artist and His Wife in Dresden and London. His figures often become mythical, as Saskja does in Bathsheba (Madrid, 1634), Flora, and Danaë (Leningrad, 1634–36). There are portraits depicting figures who might be biblical personages or high dignitaries, whom R. represents in brocade garments, with oriental turbans and dark cloaks; they are commonly called Rabbis. Biblical subjects are the artist’s favorite themes; while adhering faithfully to the texts, he transfigures them in a poetic and pictorial vision of his own that transcends the narrative: Rest on the Flight into Egypt (The Hague, 1634–35), Stories of the Cross (Munich and Leningrad), The Sacrifice of Abraham (ibid., 1635), Samson and the Philistines (Frankfurt), Tobias and the Angel (Louvre, 1637). Particularly noteworthy is his treatment of landscape, a subject in its own right in about fifteen paintings completed between 1638 and 1648; within the fantastic overall vision are precise observations of details drawn from nature. The influence of Hercules Seghers, who left beautiful landscapes in numerous etchings of great power, is unmistakable in these works.
The year 1642, the year of the celebrated painting The Night Watch (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), a vast composition in which the group of armed men is captured in movement through powerful contrasts of light, marks, with the death of his beloved Saskja, the beginning of a new period in R.’s life and art; years of sorrow and misfortune during which the artist withdrew into a solitary and modest existence with the faithful housekeeper Hendrickje Stoppels, who later became his wife, and Saskja’s only surviving son, Titus, both of whom appear in many portraits from the succeeding years (an inventory of 1656 reveals the immense collection of works of art that R. had assembled in his home during the happy years, followed by total financial ruin). But his activity continued; among many other works, the Self-Portrait of the Uffizi and that of the Louvre date from 1660, and the masterpiece The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild (Amsterdam, Museum) from 1661. Among the master’s final works are the tragic Jewish Bride in Amsterdam, the Family in the Braunschweig Museum, and The Return of the Prodigal Son in Leningrad; the color is pastose and plastic, with flashes of unreal light. More than three hundred etchings and 1,500 drawings also constitute a no less vital part of R.’s activity. Famous are the etchings of the Mother, the Father, The Death of the Virgin (1639), The Raising of Lazarus, Christ before Pilate, The Three Crosses, etc.; the landscapes include Six’s Bridge (1645) and the famous Three Trees, in which the line is always powerful and highly personal; here too R. transforms familiar scenes into evocations of grand biblical events. Among his pupils, Karel Fabricius stands out; among the others are Govert Flinck, Ferdinand Bol, Jan Victors, Barent Fabricius, Samuel van Hoogstraten, and Nicolas Maes. - Vedi tav. XXXIX.