Paintings of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn ...3

paintings of
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn...3

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                                             Rembrandt Biography

    After the death of his beloved wife, he hired a housekeeper Hendrickje Stoffels
who had later become his common law wife and Rembrandt used her as a model for several of his paintings. The beautiful portrait of the "Lady" in the Salon Carré of the Louvre and the "Venus and Cupid "of the same gallery represent Hendrickje.

            Rembrandt attained fame for his rich play of colors in the paintings "The Bather" of the National Gallery and "Danae" (1636) at St Petersburg . These paintings glow with color and life, and the warm skin seems as tender as real. Another very well known work by Rembrandt is the "Return of the Prodigal Son" in the Berlin Gallery. He paints the anxiety of the parents as they wait the return of their son. In 1637 he painted the fine picture now in the Louvre of the "Flight of the Angel".
                 He made his own portrait (1640) at the National Gallery which clearly portrays a change in his art and the man himself in a very subtle way. He describes himself as strong and robust, with firm and compressed lips a determined chin, with heavy eyebrows, and eyes with a firm penetrating glance. It portrays the man himself as being self-reliant and idealistic with clear cut views and ideas. He had many friends and pupils, and he was quite conscious of his position and fame in the world of art. He received numerous commissions and he soon bought a large house in the Breedstraat. During the next sixteen years of his life he gathered his large collection of paintings, engravings, amour and costume. But his ostentatious lifestyle was short lived and in 1656 he declared bankruptcy. He was forced to auction off his treasured art collection as well as his house. He began to focus more on painting for his own enjoyment rather than for commission.

                He was also known for his landscape drawings and etchings. His landscape paintings depict the environment around him. "The Night Watch", painted in 1642 talks about a group of city guardsmen awaiting the command to fall in line. This great picture is more correctly known as the "Sortie of the Banning Cock Company" in which twenty-nine life-sized civic guards are introduced issuing pell-mell from their club house. Each man is painted with the care that Rembrandt gave to single portraits, yet the composition is such that the separate figures are second in interest to the effect of the whole. The canvas is brilliant with color, rich brush, and light. The shadow of one color tones down the lightness of the other. Quite contrary to the name it is but a day watch.

                 Rembrandt touched no side of art without setting his mark on it, whether in still life, as in his dead birds or the "Slaughtered Ox" of the Louvre or in his drawings of elephants and lions. But at this period of his, career we come upon a branch of his art on which he left, both in etching and in painting, the stamp of his genius, viz, landscape. Roeland Roghman, but ten years his senior, evidently influenced his style, for the resemblance between their works is so great that, as at Cassel, there has been confusion of authorship. In "Winter Scene" of Cassel (1646) he aims at grandeur and poetical effect, while in the "Repose of the Holy Family" of 1647 (formerly called the " Gipsies ") he brings out a moonlight effect, clear even in the shadows. In the "Canal" of Lord Lansdowne, and the "Mountain Landscape
with Approaching Storm", the bright sun shine behind the heavy clouds, are both conceived and executed very skillfully. In all these pictures the play of light on darkness accompanied by the shadow is the theme of the poet-painter. The "Joseph Accused by Potiphar's Wife " of 1654 is a fine example of his mastery of expression and effect of light and shade .

                      In 1656 Rembrandt was suffering from financial crisis and he was almost bankrupt. He had nothing much to be but auction his own treasured paintings. The first sale took place in 1657 in the Keizerskroon hotel; and the second in 1658, when the larger part of the etchings and drawings were disposed of. Around this time he painted the "Old Man with the Grey Beard" of the National Gallery (1657) and the "Bruyningh, the Secretary of the Insolvents' Chamber" of Cassel (1658).

               In the year 1663 Rembrandt painted the "Jewish Bride" of the Ryks Museum in Amsterdam, and the "Family Group" of Brunswick. Both these were done towards the last part of his illustrious career and life and are perhaps the most brilliant of his collection. The woman and children are painted with such love and care that the theme of the painting is very clear to the viewer.

                 In his old age Rembrandt painted his own portraits. About twenty such portraits are known. In 1668 Rembrandt received a blow when Titus, his only son died. Less than a year later on 8th of October 1669 the great painter himself passed away, leaving two children. He was buried in the Westel Kerk. "Death of the Virgin," the "Christ Preaching", the "Christ Healing the Sick" (the "Hundred Guilder Print"), the "Presentation to the People," the "Crucifixion " are some of his etchings. While "The Night Watch" 1642 , Rembrandt's Mother as Biblical Prophetess Hannah 1631 , Portrait of an Old Man in Red 1652-54, Portrait of Nicolaes Ruts 1631, Saskia as Flora 1634, Jan Six 1654, The Sacrifice of Abraham 1635,
Belshazzar's Feast 1635, Aristotle Before the Bust of Homer 1653, The Holy Family 1645, Stormy Landscape 1638, The Music Party 1626, The Polish Rider 1655, Philosopher in Meditation 1632, The Conspiration of the Bataves 1661-62, The Three Crosses 1653 are some of his paintings that earned him a name in the world of art and painting.