Contemporaneous with the Flemish school of which Rubens and Van Dyck were
the masters, was the Dutch school, of which the great name was Rembrandt
Harmensz van Rijn. Few persons have suffered more from their biographers
than the painters of the Dutch school, and none of them more than
Rembrandt. The writings of Van Mander, and the too active imagination
of Houbraken, have misrepresented these artists in every possible way.
Thus Rembrandt has been described as the son of a miller, one whose first
ideas of light and shadow were gained among his father’s flour sacks
in the old mill at the Rhine. He has been described as a spendthrift
reveler at taverns, and as marrying a peasant girl. All this is fiction.
The facts are briefly these: Rembrandt was born on July 15, 1607, in the
house of his father, Hermann Gerritszoon Van Rijn, a substantial burgess,
the owner of several houses, and possessing a large share in a mill on
the Weddesteeg at Leyden. Educated at the Latin school at Leyden, and
intended for the study of the law, Rembrandt’s early skill as an artist
determined his father to allow him to follow his own taste.
But it was not from these nor from any master that Rembrandt learnt to
paint. Nature was his model, and he was his own teacher. In 1630 he
produced one of his earliest oil paintings, the “Portrait of an Old
Man,” and at this time he settled as a painter in Amsterdam. He devoted
himself to the teaching of his pupils more than to the cultivation of the
wealthy, but instead of being the associate of drunken boors, as some
have described him, he was the friend of the Burgomaster Six, of Jeremias
de Decker the poet, and many other persons of good position. In 1632
Rembrandt produced his famous picture, “The Lesson in Anatomy;” about
that time he was established in Sint Antonie Breedstraat; in the next
year he married Saskia van Ulenburch, the daughter of the Burgomaster
of Leeuwarden, whose face he loved to paint best after that of his old
mother. We may see Saskia’s portrait in the famous picture, “Rembrandt
with his wife on his knee,” in the Dresden Gallery; and a “Portrait of
Saskia” alone is in the Cassel Gallery.
In the year 1640 Rembrandt painted a portrait, long known under the
misnomer of “The Frame-maker.” It is usually called “Le Doreur,” and it
is said that the artist painted the portrait in payment for some picture
frames; but is in reality a portrait of Dorer, a friend of Rembrandt.
The year 1642 saw Rembrandt’s masterpiece, the so-called “Night-watch.”
Saskia died in the same year, and the four children of the marriage
all died early, Titus, the younger son, who promised to follow in his
father’s steps, not surviving him. Rembrandt was twice married after
Saskia’s death. The latter years of the great master’s life were clouded
by misfortune. Probably owing to the stagnation of trade in Amsterdam,
Rembrandt grew poorer and poorer, and in 1656 was insolvent. His goods
and many pictures were sold by auction in 1658, and realized less than
5,000 guilders. Still he worked bravely on. His last known pictures are
dated 1668. On the 8th of October, 1669, Rembrandt died, and was buried
in the Wester Kerk.
Rembrandt was the typical painter of the Dutch School; his treatment is
distinctly Protestant and naturalistic. Yet he was an idealist in his
way, and as “The King of Shadows,” as he has been called, he brought
forth from the dark recesses of nature, effects which become, under his
pencil, poems upon canvas. Rembrandt loved to paint pictures warmed by a
clear, though limited light, which dawns through masses of shadow, and
this gives much of that air of mystery so noticeable in his works. In
most of his pictures painted before 1633, there is more daylight and less
shadow, and the work is more studied and delicate.
In the National Gallery we find two portraits of Rembrandt, one
representing him at the age of thirty-two, another when an old man.
In the same collection is the “Woman taken in Adultery” (1644), and
the “Adoration of the Shepherds” (1646), both superb in arrangement
and execution. Germany and Russia are almost as rich as Holland in the
number of Rembrandt’s pictures which they possess. The “Descent from the
Cross,” in the Munich Gallery, is a specimen of the sacred subjects of
this master. He interprets the Bible from the Protestant and realistic
standpoint, and though the coloring of the pictures is marvelous, the
grotesque features and Walloon dress of the personages represented
make it hard to recognize the actors in the gospel story. Many of his
Scripture characters were doubtless painted from the models afforded him
in the Jews’ quarter of Amsterdam, where he resided. The magnificent
panoramic landscape belonging to Lord Overstone, and the famous picture
of “The Mill” against a sunset sky, are signal examples of his poetic
power, and his etchings show us this peculiarity of his genius, even
more than his oil paintings. Of these etchings, which range over every
class of subject, religious, historical, landscape and portrait, there
is a fine collection in the British Museum; and they should be studied
in order to understand the immense range of his superb genius. The “Ecce
Homo,” to say nothing of the splendor, the light and shade, and richness
of execution, has never been surpassed for dramatic expression; and we
forgive the commonness of form and type in the expression of touching
pathos in the figure of the Savior; nor would it be possible to express
with greater intensity the terrible raging of the crowd, the ignobly
servile and cruel supplications of the priests, or the anxious desire to
please on the part of Pilate. The celebrated plate “Christ Healing the
Sick,” exhibits in the highest perfection his mastery of chiaroscuro, and
the marvelous delicacies of gradation which he introduced into his more
finished work.
The number of Rembrandt’s pictures in Holland, although it includes
his three greatest, is remarkably small—indeed, they may be counted on
the fingers; and lately, by the sale of the Van Loon collection, the
Dutch have lost two more of his finest works in the portraits of the
“Burgomaster Six” and “His Wife.” But his works abound in the other great
galleries of Europe.
* * * * *
There is really in nature such a thing as high life. A life of health, of
sound morality, of disinterested intellectual activity, of freedom from
petty cares is higher than a life of disease and vice, and stupidity and
sordid anxiety. I maintain that it is right and wise in a nation to set
before itself the highest attainable ideal of human life as the existence
of a complete gentleman.—_Hamerton._