REMBRANDT
As his name denotes, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606–1669) was born on the banks of the Rhine, his father being a miller at Leyden. When fourteen years of age he entered the university of his native town and had a classical education, which stood him in good stead through his long and troubled career. Although he was at first placed as a pupil of Jacob van Swanenburgh, he at an early age removed to Amsterdam. There he worked under Pieter Lastman (1583–1633), whose Abraham’s Sacrificing Jacob (No. 2443a) of 1616 is hung opposite the works of his illustrious pupil. The independent spirit of Rembrandt soon asserted itself, and as early as 1627 he placed his name on pictures which still exist, notably in the Berlin and Stuttgart museums. His earliest picture in the Louvre is the Old Man Reading (No. 2541a), which is signed and dated 1630, and was presented by M. Kaempfen, a former Director of this gallery, on his retirement. Three years later came the two small and very similar versions (No. 2540 and No. 2541) of the Philosopher in Meditation, the former of which is signed and dated; in 1633 was painted the Portrait of the Artist (No. 2552), while another oval picture of the same subject (No. 2553) is inscribed 1634. In this early period the artist was in the habit of portraying members of his own family, who were naturally his most accessible models.
At this moment of his career Rembrandt had to measure himself with many rivals in Amsterdam, notably with Thomas de Keyser (1596?–1667), whose Portrait of a Man (No. 2438a) was formerly in the Rodolphe Kann collection, while a half-length Portrait of a Man (No. 2438b), also by de Keyser, was formerly at Versailles. From the trammels and restrictions which the art of de Keyser would have been likely to impose on a less gifted and original mind, Rembrandt readily set himself free; and he must have had great hopes for the future when, in 1634, he took to wife the wealthy Saskia van Uylenborch. However, the oval Portrait of Himself wearing a black cap (No. 2554), dated 1637, is of marked inferiority to the dignified and deeply religious panel, The Archangel Raphael leaving Tobias and his Father Tobit (No. 2536), of the same year. A year later he must have painted the Portrait of an Old Man (No. 2544), and his first pure landscape.
The influence of domestic bereavements on Rembrandt’s art is clearly reflected in the choice of his subjects, in their more intimate setting, and in the deep feeling which evidently inspired them. No better example of this side of his character and his art could be found than the Holy Family in the Carpenter’s Shop (No. 2542), which he painted in 1640. In that year his mother died, an event which followed rapidly on the death of his two infant daughters and his son, and his wife’s frequent illness. He, however, still went on painting such varied compositions as the Portrait of a Man (No. 2546), of 1645, and the Woman Bathing (No. 2550), which he achieved two years later.
PLATE XXIX.—REMBRANDT
(1606–1669)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2539.—THE PILGRIMS AT EMMAUS
(Les Pèlerins d’Emmaüs)
In a lofty room in front of a shallow niche in a wall, Christ and the two disciples sit at table; a young serving-man enters from the right, carrying a dish. Christ, whose bare feet are seen underneath the table, gazes heavenward as He breaks bread, by which act the disciples recognise Him as their Lord. The room is lit from the left.
Painted in oil on panel.
Signed below on the left:—“Rembrandt f. 1648.”
2 ft. 2¾ in. × 2 ft. 1¾ in. (0·68 × 0·65.)
The famous Night-Watch, in the Amsterdam Gallery, testifies to his inventive faculty in 1642, the year in which the death of his beloved Saskia caused him intense grief. From this he never really recovered, as we see from the frequency with which during the remainder of his life he painted pathetic subjects. What artist in the whole history of painting has been able to impart to his rendering of the Good Samaritan the kindly solicitude of the principal character in this parable, and the feeling of complete collapse seen in the body of the wounded man, as Rembrandt has done in his superb canvas (No. 2537) of 1648 in this gallery? No less poignant is the grief depicted on the face of the barefooted Man of Sorrows in the Christ and the Pilgrims at Emmaus (No. 2539, [Plate XXIX.]) of the same year. Here we see convincing proof of the dexterous use that the Dutch “magician-painter” could make of chiaroscuro, which he has handled with such masterly effect in the Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels (No. 2547, [Plate XXX.]). All these paintings belong to the same period as the soul-moving Polish Rider, which in 1910 passed from the collection of Count Tarnowski at Dzikow in Galicia into that of Mr. H. C. Frick in New York for £60,000. The Portrait of a Man holding a Bâton (No. 2551), in the La Caze collection in this gallery, was painted three years later than the Bathsheba, or Woman Bathing (No. 2549), of 1654. The wonderfully realistic and in no way repellent Carcase of an Ox in this gallery (No. 2548), like the picture of the same subject at Glasgow, is an achievement of a very different kind, and belongs to the year 1655.
The Louvre authorities have been well advised in recent years in hanging all the pictures by Rembrandt in this collection in one Bay of the Long Gallery. Here now we may study the Portrait of a Young Man (No. 2545), the wonderful and rather later Portrait of the Artist at his Easel at the age of Fifty-four (No. 2555), and the striking St. Matthew (No. 2538) of 1661. Before these three works were painted, the great Dutch master had been declared bankrupt, the sale of his most treasured possessions realising a ridiculously small sum in the winter of 1657.
Although Rembrandt’s own standard of morality offended his neighbours, and his relations with Hendrickje Stoffels seem to have caused much scandal in Amsterdam, we are not concerned with the morals of one of the greatest and most esteemed of the world’s painters, but only with his œuvre, a high place in which must be accorded to the Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels and her Child as Venus and Cupid (No. 2543), which was painted in 1662, the year that the large Syndics, now in the Amsterdam Gallery, was completed.
He is also to be credited with the alternative version of the Pilgrims at Emmaus (No. 2555a), a painting of the same date, which for many years was at Compiègne, where, however, it passed only as a school picture. This profoundly creative painter, who learnt as time went on to handle his chiaroscuro with increased effect, was also an etcher of the highest order.
We may here note that the art of Jan Lievens (1607–1674), a fellow-pupil with Rembrandt under Pieter Lastman, is seen in the large but far from imposing Visitation (No. 2444).
PLATE XXX.—REMBRANDT
(1606–1669)
DUTCH SCHOOL
No. 2547.—PORTRAIT OF HENDRICKJE STOFFELS
(Portrait de Hendrickje Stoffels)
She is seated, and looks at the spectator. Over her rich brown hair she wears a grey cap with narrow red ribbons; pearl pendants are in her ears, and she wears a brooch on her breast. Life-size half-length figure.
Painted in oil on canvas.
2 ft. 4½ in. × 1 ft. 11¾ in. (0·72 × 0·60.)