"Rembranding" Himself in the 20th Century: Assignment 12

Assignment 12

Thomas Tiernan

Rembrandt

            Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter and etcher born in July 1606. He is considered one of the greatest European art painters and easily the most important artist in Dutch history. Rembrandt always lived a humble life and his full potential was not brought to light until the mid 20^th century. Rembrandt was extremely talented in self portraits and illustration of scenes from the Bible. It was not until 1631 did Rembrandt receive his first important commission for his painting, “the Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp”. This was a big step forward from Rembrandt’s usual religious and mythological paintings. I personally enjoy this picture because it shows the honest interest the students have of science. The way they are leaning over a deceased body in a dim lit room is well drawn. Most of Rembrandt’s paintings from the 1630’s maintain optimistic and self-assuring feelings in spite of their brutality. One of his most important paintings was “Night Watch” which was created in 1642. Rembrandt wanted to produce a feeling of movement and thus did not paint the subjects on a neat line. The painting seems very similar to the Italian Renaissance with large amounts of very detailed people gathered in public. To my surprise, this painting was a public failure and in the 1640’s the public noticed a decrease in Rembrandt paintings. After his wife’s death, Rembrandt began to focus on landscape. For example, “Winter Scene” was a surprising painting from Rembrandt.  He seemed to ignore contemporary art and relied heavily on the art from the past. I enjoyed this picture because the mood felt different than most of his previous works. The change from the dark color to brighter colors worked very well, and I wish Rembrandt produced more landscape paintings in his earlier works.