Rembrandt

Dutch painter

• Born: July 15, 1606
• Birthplace: Leiden, United Provinces (now in the Netherlands)
• Died: October 4, 1669
• Place of death: Amsterdam, United Provinces (now in the Netherlands)

Considered by many to be the greatest portrait painter of all time, Rembrandt is also renowned for his etchings and drawings. His works reflect his masterful ability to create realistic images that invite the viewer into his world, composed primarily of working-class and poor subjects living simple lives.

Early Life

Rembrandt (REHM-brahnt) was born in Leiden, the son of Harmen van Rijn, a miller, and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuidbroeck, the daughter of a baker. After seven years in Latin school and a very brief period at the University of Leiden, he studied for three years with Jacob van Swanenburch, a pedestrian painter, and for about six months with Pieter Lastman, who influenced his treatment of mythological and religious subjects, particularly with respect to the use of vivid expressions, of lighting, and of the high gloss that appears on many of his earliest works.

Rembrandt’s earliest known dated painting, the Stoning of Saint Stephen (1625), is a work that brims with action. The saint’s face is tilted up toward a central figure, who stands with a large stone raised over his head in both hands, his arms forming a triangle that defines the space around the kneeling saint. Within this space are several men with stones in hand, whose arms and twisted bodies form powerful diagonals in contrast to the saint’s own outstretched, diagonally positioned arms. The vividly realized faces and the skillful composition of a large crowd (with numerous faces peering through outstretched arms) suggest Rembrandt’s early mastery of both large subjects and individualized figures.

By his early twenties, Rembrandt was working in Leiden as an independent master, making his living by painting portraits but also devoting considerable time to biblical and mythological subjects. He was attracted to the faces of the anonymous poor, often using them to portray philosophers and biblical characters. Two Scholars Disputing (1628) is a fair example of his penchant for presenting scenes that seem like a slice of life yet are unconventional and not easily defined. There is nothing particularly symbolic or representative about the scene. It seems rather about an attitude toward life, an intimate observation of two men—one of whom is seen only from the back and side as the other focuses his eyes on him and points to a particular page in the text over which they are evidently arguing. As in much of the artist’s later work, there is a sense of something having been left out, of the painting concealing as much as it reveals about its subjects. They share something that is precisely what the viewer is not able to recover from the painting.

The etchings Rembrandt made of himself in 1630 suggest considerable humor and anger. In the 1630’s, Rembrandt enjoyed a happy marriage that was otherwise marred by the deaths of his first three children. By the time he had moved to Amsterdam and had wed Saskia van Uylenburgh (who became the model for many of his works), he had already produced great art, such as The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (1632), a powerfully dramatic painting, with a poised Dr. Tulp able to command the attention and wonder of seven observers, each of whom gazes fixedly on the cadaver’s forearm as the doctor proceeds, scissors in hand, to make his demonstration. As in Two Scholars Disputing, Rembrandt accomplished the uncanny feat of suggesting that the viewer is witnessing the scene at first hand and not merely observing from the outside.

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (1631) is an early, commanding example of Rembrandt’s poised skill in representing biblical subjects. As Michael Kitson suggests, this is a picture about looking—the high priest, the rabbis, and the large collection of worshipers are angled in positions that emphasize their excited observation of the Christ child. What is more difficult to see in the reproduction of the painting is the smooth finish of Rembrandt’s technique, the way soothing, polished color is applied to this quiet yet epic scene. Although the temple ceiling is very high, the illumination of the central group rivets the viewer’s attention.

Life’s Work

There came a tremendous void in Rembrandt’s life after Saskia’s death in 1642. Yet he managed to paint a masterpiece, The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch, more popularly known as The Night Watch (1642)—an erroneous eighteenth century title that was abandoned when the painting was cleaned, revealing a dramatically lit portrayal of eighteen militiamen. What makes the painting so appealing are Rembrandt’s characteristic small touches—the children wandering among the armed men, the dog scampering about, the men in varying stages of readiness, checking their rifles, conferring in small groups, and in general inspecting their equipment. Utterly absent from the scene is any sort of staginess or self-conscious presentation. In its sense of depth, of shadow and light, of strong vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines, the painting moves the eye just as these figures are moved by their preparations. Somehow Rembrandt puts his viewers in sync with the rhythms of his subjects.

What is extraordinary about such pictures is their lack of subject or theme. On the face of it, such paintings do not have any particular message to convey. They do not commemorate some specific event, and they do not invite viewers to take a specific attitude. Yet such works are authentic and intriguing, as though the figures have just stepped into the artist’s frame.

In the 1640’s, Rembrandt turned toward religious painting, perhaps in response to the death of his wife. The Holy Family with Angels (1645) presents an almost homely looking, full-figured Mary bending over the cradle of Jesus as Joseph works on a piece of wood in an interior scene of comforting domesticity. Rembrandt’s landscapes and etchings during this period suggest his enormous talent for evoking a place in a few strokes and with great originality, always emphasizing the individuality of scenes.

Toward the end of the 1640’s, Rembrandt’s servant, Hendrickje Stoffels, became his mistress. A clause in Saskia’s will made it impossible for him to marry again, but his depictions of Hendrickje in his art rivaled his deep feelings for Saskia. Hendrickje seems to be the subject of Woman Bathing (1654), a lovely illustration of Rembrandt’s later manner, where patches of color blend together and human faces have a shaded suggestiveness to them, an expression they seem to have for themselves when they are all alone. Such figures convey the feeling of being seen from the inside out, as though the artist is rendering their feelings and not those of an eavesdropping observer.

Similarly, An Old Man Seated in an Armchair (1652) has been described as one of Rembrandt’s most poetic paintings, with reds, orange browns, and yellows that blend together and fracture the precise color schemes of earlier paintings. The result is a new fluidity and grace, an artful vigor that is in curious contrast with the aged man’s obvious weariness as he rests his right hand against the side of his head and casts his eyes downward.

When Rembrandt reached middle age, he was declared insolvent and his great art collection was sold to satisfy his creditors. He remained a respected figure in Amsterdam but also something of a recluse who did not recover his full powers until the 1660’s, when he produced some of his greatest works, including The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild (1661), a painting that presents a probing analysis of cloth merchants who seem to have been caught in a moment of business. They have what might be called seasoned faces—eyes, in particular, that gaze out from the painting in various guises of watchfulness and inquiry. The viewer feels the weight of their stares and senses what it must be like to do business with these formidable men.

Although Hendrickje died in 1663 and Titus (Rembrandt’s only surviving child by Saskia) in 1668, the artist continued to produce great work—not the least of which were his self-portraits, begun in his youth and continued to the very year of his death. His self-portrait of 1640 presents a handsomely clothed and composed figure—obviously a successful and self-confident artist. His self-portrait of 1650 seems less open, perhaps more reserved, and the one of 1652 offers a man, hands on hips, toughened by experience. Later self-portraits suggest an aging but durable figure, with one (c. 1660) composed of very heavy brush strokes and a roughened texture that indicates the pain and weariness of his later years. There is, however, a majesty in some of these portraits—particularly in the one of 1669, in which old age and experience may have given depth to the eyes but no trace of the weariness Rembrandt painted in the countenances of other old men.

Significance

In the very year that Rembrandt died, he produced a self-portrait that is massive in its philosophical attitude. No portrait painter has equaled the depth and range of his work or has had the technique to rival his surface polish and attention to detail. Often, Rembrandt’s portraits seemed to be grooved with life—a result, in part, of his using the butt end of the brush to apply paint. His touch was as bold as it was delicate, but in his own time he was faulted for picking working-class subjects and for not staying within the sublime “limits” of great art.

More modern critics, however, have welcomed him as a contemporary, who has shown that it is not the artist’s choice of subject but what he or she does with the material that is most important. Rembrandt could make a philosopher of a beggar, and he could turn a painting about businessmen into a work of art that gives the viewer a palpable sense of what it means to transact business with the painter’s subjects. Rembrandt’s perceptions, in other words, grow out of his subject matter but, in doing so, transcend the subjects of his paintings. In the end, his painting, like his etchings and drawings, exists for its own sake, creating rather than merely reporting its subject matter.

Bibliography

Alpers, Svetlana. The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. Essential reading for all students of seventeenth century Dutch art. Alpers relates Dutch painting to the primacy of visual representation, which confirmed seeing and representing over reading and interpretation as the means for a new knowledge of the world. An excellent chapter on the works of Rembrandt and his contemporary Jan Vermeer.

Clark, Kenneth. Rembrandt and the Italian Renaissance. New York: New York University Press, 1966. An elegant study by one of the century’s great art critics, this volume includes 181 black-and-white plates, a short bibliography, notes, and an excellent index.

Goldscheider, Ludwig. Rembrandt: Paintings, Drawings, and Etchings. London: Phaidon Press, 1960. A superb set of 128 plates, 35 in color, with an introduction by Goldscheider and three early biographical accounts reprinted in their entirety. Extensive notes and an index make this a very useful volume.

Haverkamp-Begemann, E. Rembrandt: The Nightwatch. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982. A historical and critical study of one of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings. With more than ninety illustrations, including a handsome foldout color plate, this is an excellent example of scholarly thoroughness.

Kitson, Michael. Rembrandt. London: Phaidon Press, 1969. A succinct study of Rembrandt’s life and art, divided in sections evaluating his art, his “subject pictures,” portraits, and landscapes. An “outline biography” gives the most important dates in the artist’s life, and forty-eight large color plates provide a handsome and representative sampling of his work.

Rosenberg, Jakob. Rembrandt: Life and Work. Rev. ed. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1964. A revised edition of the classic 1948 comprehensive study of the artist’s life and work, with separate chapters on portraiture, landscape, biblical subjects, Rembrandt in his century, and style and technique. Heavily footnoted and well indexed.

Schama, Simon. Rembrandt’s Eyes. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Schama, a noted art historian who also wrote the now-classic study The Embarrassment of Riches (1988), a work examining the seventeenth century Dutch Golden Age, aims to re-create the world in which Rembrandt lived so readers can understand how he thought and conceived his art. Schama intersperses descriptions and interpretations of Rembrandt’s artworks with details of his life, creating a well-written and detailed biography. Printed on heavy, high-gloss paper, the book contains numerous full-color illustrations, including double-page color spreads of most of Rembrandt’s most memorable paintings.

Wallace, Robert. The World of Rembrandt, 1606-1669. New York: Time-Life Books, 1968. A very useful study of the life, the times, and the art of Rembrandt, including chapters on Rembrandt as legend, Rembrandt’s Holland, and styles. A rich selection of black-and-white and color plates covers all phases of the artist’s career and includes comparisons with the work of his contemporaries and models. A chronology of the artists of Rembrandt’s era, an annotated bibliography, and an index make this an essential text.

Westermann, Mariët. Rembrandt. London: Phaidon, 2000. One of the publisher’s Arts and Ideas titles, a series of books aimed at describing artists’ work in nontechnical language. Westermann, a native of the Netherlands and a specialist in Dutch art, recounts the incidents of Rembrandt’s life, describes his workshop and business dealings, and explains the unique qualities of his paintings and etchings.