PORTRAIT OF JOHN SIX
In the Six Gallery, Amsterdam
WOMAN WITH PINK
In the Gallery at Cassel, Germany
Rembrandt painted many Biblical pictures, which are at present widely scattered throughout the European galleries. In all of them he gave a new interpretation, a profound insight, a real meaning, to Scriptural story. In addition he painted many figure compositions of a historical or mythological cast. But his great success, after all said and done, was with the portrait. His technical methods were well suited to the portrait, and he was unsurpassed in giving the truth of presence in his sitter. The quiet dignity of his Dutch burghers, their repose and simplicity, the complete absence of anything like pretense about them, made up Rembrandt’s point of view; but to this he added a cunning hand and a technical skill that were wonderful. How superbly with his catches of light and shade he could draw an eye, a forehead, a nose, a chin! How instantly and inevitably he caught the salient feature and turned it by sharp emphasis into positive expression! What significance he could get out of an outstretched hand, a bent back, a bowed head! These were features wherewith he proclaimed the character of his sitter. The “Portrait of an Old Lady,” in the National Gallery, London, has the flabby cheek, the trembling lip, the wrinkled brow of the aged; but you can also see that hers has been a life of suffering, and that the eyes have often been blinded with tears. On the contrary, the “Portrait of a Man”—the so-called Sobieski, at Petrograd, has the determination and force of the warrior. It has grip and firmness and courage about it. These are not only in the features, but Rembrandt has even put them in the brush work—the manner of handling. Again, by way of contrast, the heads in the “Lesson in Anatomy” are put in calmly, serenely, inevitably just right. What intelligence, seriousness, and living presence they have! They are what might be called speaking likenesses, in the sense that all they lack of life is speech. And what can one say that will adequately describe the loveliness of mood, the eternal womanly, in the “Portrait of Saskia,” at Cassel! It is a wonder as a piece of color, but still more wonderful as a characterization of the painter’s wife. Once more, for a further contrast, look at the “Portrait of Coppenol.” He is supposed to be a writing master because he is sharpening a quill pen, but whatever his profession or pursuit, have you any difficulty in seeing here a dull-witted person of very limited intelligence? The very fatness of the forehead, so remarkable in its realistic rendering, the narrow eyes, with their vacant stare, the pumpkin cheeks and head, the soft, lazy hands, seem to point to some clerk or pedagogue, who had not enough brains to know that he wanted more.
Rembrandt was easily one of the great group of portrait painters with Titian, Velasquez, and Holbein. And by this I mean no faint praise. It seems to be thought in some quarters that portraiture is somehow an inferior branch of painting. It is said to require no invention or imagination. But nothing could be more mistaken than such an idea. When we speak of Rembrandt, Titian, Velasquez, and Holbein we are speaking of the world’s great masters, and perhaps their most satisfactory masterpieces are their portraits. A painter who can adequately portray his fellow man, as Rembrandt did, has practically said the last word in art. That Rembrandt had this gift and accomplishment is evidenced by the high esteem in which his work is held by painters even to this day.
THE NIGHT WATCH
In the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam