Painter of light - Rembrandt

Sculptor Rodin said, "Compare me with Rembrandt? We should prostrate ourselves before Rembrandt and never compare anyone with him!

Van Gogh wrote: It is with justice that they call Rembrandt—magician."

Another noted artist said: "Whenever I see a Rembrandt, I feel like giving up painting".

Quotes from the greats only go to vindicate the sense of hopelessness and insufficiency I felt when I saw my first Rembrandt painting ‘A woman bathing in a stream’ a few years ago. ‘Ideally, I should never touch a paint brush again!” I had thought. A self portrait from his later years was next. Well, what can I say? Except that, his work also spurs us on to try harder and never give up.

Rembrandt (1606 – 1669) was a draughtsman, painter and printmaker, one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art during the Dutch Golden Age. His works depict a wide range, from portraits and self-portraits to landscapes, historical scenes, mythological themes as well as animal studies. Rembrandt was also an avid art collector and dealer. Apart from Old Master paintings and drawings, his collections comprised of busts of the Roman Emperors, suits of Japanese armour, objects from Asia, and collections of natural history and minerals.

At the age of 14, he started his art training with a history painter for three years and then two brief apprenticeships for few months each with two other artists. He started his own workshop at 19 and began to accept students. Because of his reputation as a good teacher, his studio was always filled with pupils.

Unlike many of his contemporaries who traveled to Italy for art training, Rembrandt never left the Dutch Republic during his lifetime. Inspite of this, he is known to have painted like he had seen the whole world! At age 23, Rembrandt won important commissions from the court of The Hague.

His drawings are known to be a unique art style similar to Asian masters, especially Chinese masters. This was very different from anything in European art before the twentieth century.

Rembrandt’s etchings were popular throughout his lifetime. At first he used a style based on drawing, later he changed to one based on painting. He also experimented with the effects of printing on different kinds of paper, including Japanese paper and on vellum. His biggest contribution in the history of printmaking was that as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium, his technique has never been questioned since. Few of his paintings left the Dutch Republic whilst he lived, but his prints were circulated throughout Europe. This brought him wide fame and recognition.

Mughal miniatures influenced him during the later years of his life. He etched at least two dozen reproductions of Mughal paintings though he never travelled to India. These include paintings of Shah Jahan, Akbar, Jahangir and Dara Shiko.

His paintings progressed from the initial smooth manner, to the later rough treatment to create an illusionism of form. The early dramatic effects by strong contrasts of light and shadow changed later in his career, to the use of front lighting and larger areas of colour. In the later years, the figures were placed parallel to the picture plane as compared to the angularly positioned earlier portraits. These changes indicate a move towards classical composition.

In the 1600s cameras had not yet been invented, so people had portraits painted of themselves and their families. He got early success as a portrait painter. Rembrandt's portraits of his contemporaries and self-portraits are regarded as his greatest creative achievement. He captured a person's personality and emotion on canvas. People looked natural and real, as if making direct eye contact with the viewer. He has been referred to as the ‘photographer’ of the human face!

His self-portraits form a unique personal biography. His oil paintings portray his life from his youth, to a very successful portrait-painter of the 1630s, to the impactful portraits of his old age. Rembrandt's extraordinary series of self portraits is unusual for the depth of scrutiny he places himself under.

Rembrandt would be remembered as an extraordinary self-portraitist. There are about 40 in all.

The most prominent characteristic of Rembrandt's work are his use of chiaroscuro, the use of light and shadow. The most unique quality in his work is light. Every person in a painting is well lit. There is no direct source of light, but people’s faces seems to glow. In his portraits, the sitter's face is angled in such a way that the ridge of the nose nearly always forms the line between brightly lit and shadowed areas.

His memorable quotes are:

Choose only one master — Nature.

Without atmosphere, a painting is nothing.

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Published in colour Canvas issue of October 2018