Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

(1606-1669)

Rembrandt, stands above other Dutch artists through his range of subject matter, imagination, versatility, and depth of expression. In his religious works and portraits he showed spiritual reverence for human life which place him among the greatest artists. Through his large studio, he exercised an immense influence on Dutch painting.

      Rembrandt originally spelled Rembrant  Dutch painter and printmaker, one of the greatest storytellers in the history of art, possessing an exceptional ability to render people in their various moods and dramatic guises. Rembrandt is also known as a painter of light and shade and as an artist who favoured an uncompromising realism that would lead some critics to claim that he preferred ugliness to beauty.

     Rembrandt's real name was Rembrandt Harmanzoon van Rijn, and he was born at Leyden in 1607, the son of a well-to-do miller. 

     He was his own teacher.  In his early days in Leyden Rembrandt painted and etched the people about him, seeking character and the picturesque, whether he found it in distinguished folk or in beggars and cripples.  He constantly used his mother as a model.  He painted between fifty and sixty portraits of himself; not from vanity, but to master every form of expression, to learn how to represent the human face from within.

     His methods were original during his whole career.  Sometimes he would take the handle of the brush and drag it over the fresh paint to give the touch he wanted to the hair or the beard.  Sometimes he would scoop up thick layers of paint with the palette knife and stick them on the canvas.

     Rembrandt developed slowly; but at twenty-five he painted the wonderful "The Anatomy Lesson." in which is shown the anatomist Nicholaes Tulp and his seven students, life size. He was then recognized as the foremost portrait painter of Amsterdam.

    When he was twenty-eight Rembrandt married a rich and beautiful fair-haired Friesian girl named Saskia.  For eight years his wife was the center of Rembrandt's life and art, and her face appears on many of his canvases. These were happy years for him.  He entertained and spent lavishly, and gave away money with equal indifference.  He paid outrageous prices for pictures when he should have paid his debts; but in spite of many distractions he worked with great energy.  No fewer than 700 of his paintings and etchings have been catalogued.

     After the death of his wife evil days came.  When he was forty-nine years old everything that Rembrandt owned was sold to meet his debts.  He was turned out of his house, without friends, with little more than the clothes on his back.  He who the world had called the "King of Shadows" entered into the gloom of poverty. But still he worked until he died at the age of sixty-two, alone and neglected.