But it is Rembrandt’s peculiar characteristic that he carried the method of chiaroscuro much further. Fromentin thus sums the matter up: He calls him a luminarist, apologizing for the word, which, when he wrote in 1876, was still a “barbarous” one. And a luminarist he defines to be one who conceives of light as outside of
SORTIE OF THE BANNING COCK COMPANY REMBRANDT
RIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM
fixed laws, attaches to it an extraordinary meaning, and makes great sacrifices for it. And, he adds, “if such is the meaning of this newly coined word, Rembrandt is at once defined and judged, for the word expresses an idea difficult to render, but a true idea, a rare eulogy and a criticism.”
Briefly, then, Fromentin’s argument is this: Rembrandt in his ideal moods essayed to use light as the actual material out of which to construct form; he composed in light. The result was admirable, when the character of the subject justified such treatment; but open to serious criticism when it did not. The famous instance of the latter, in Fromentin’s judgment, is The Sortie or “Night Watch.”
“Rembrandt had to represent a company of men-at-arms. It would have been easy enough to tell us what they were going to do; but he has told us so negligently, that people are still unable to comprehend it, even in Amsterdam. He had to paint some likenesses, they are doubtful; some characteristic costumes, they are for the most part apocryphal; a picturesque effect, and this effect is such that the picture becomes undecipherable. The subject, the personages and details have disappeared in the shadowy phantasmagoria of the palette. Ordinarily Rembrandt excels in rendering light, he is marvelous in the art of painting an imaginary subject (fiction); his habit is to think, his master faculty is the expression of light. But here imagination is out of place, life is wanting, and the thought atones for nothing. As for the light, it is unnatural, unquiet, and artificial; it radiates from the inside to the outside, it dissolves the objects that it illuminates. I see some focal spots of brilliance, but I see nothing illuminated; the light is neither beautiful, true, nor reasonable (motivée).”
Before discussing this judgment let us note Fromentin’s approval of Rembrandt’s use of light—in the case of subjects that seem to him to justify it. He instances particularly The Supper at Emmaus and The Good Samaritan, both in the Louvre. He speaks with fine sympathy of the original and infinitely human conception of Christ in the former picture, while upon the technique of the latter he comments as follows: “The canvas is enveloped in smoke (enfumée), all impregnated with somber golds, very rich in depth and, above all, very grave. The material is muddy, yet transparent; the brushwork heavy, yet subtle; hesitating and resolute; labored and free; very unequal, uncertain, vague in some parts, astonishingly precise in others. No contour appears, not an accent added in the way of routine. There is evident an extreme timidity, which is not the result of ignorance and proceeds, one would say, from the fear of being banal or from the price which the thinker attaches to the immediate and direct expression of life. The objects have a structure that seems to exist in itself, almost without the help of formulas, rendering, without any means that you can seize upon, the uncertainties of nature. There are some nude limbs and feet of irreproachable construction—moreover, ‘style.’ In the pale, pinched, groaning visage of the wounded man, there is nothing save expression, something that comes from the soul, from within outward; tonelessness (atonie), suffering; as it were, the sad joy of collecting one’s self when one feels about to die. Not a contortion, not a trait that overreaches moderation, not a touch in this rendering of the inexpressible that is not pathetic and restrained; everything dictated by profound emotion and interpreted by means altogether extraordinary.” And, adds Fromentin: “Examine other painters of sentiment, of physiognomy and characterization, the men of scrupulous observation or of verve. Take account of their intentions; study their scrutiny, measure their domain, weigh well their language, and ask yourself, if anywhere you perceive an equal intimacy in the expression of a visage, an emotion of this nature, such ingenuity in the manner of feeling; anything, in a word, which is as delicate to conceive, as delicate to say, and is said in terms more original, more exquisite, or more perfect.”