[No. 116. Two Tramps.]
_No. 116. Two Tramps._
“A fair & bewtiful citie, and of sweete situation” and famous for “ye
universitie wherwith it is adorned;” such was Leyden as the fresh eyes of
the youthful William Bradford saw it when the little company of English
exiles, later revered as the Pilgrim Fathers, sought asylum in Holland.
The fame of Leyden was to be further perpetuated, although Bradford knew
it not, by one who had but just been born there when the English pilgrims
came to the friendly university town; one who has added to the fame of his
native place chiefly because he did not attend that university, which
seemed so attractive to young Bradford. The father of this boy determined
that he should have a collegiate education that he might sometime hold a
town office, and fondly hoped that he was preparing him for it (in,
perhaps, the very schools attended by the English children), when the lad
made it clear to all men that he had no head for Latin and a very decided
talent for drawing. So it came to pass that at the time Bradford and his
friends set their faces toward America, and per-force turned their backs
upon that “goodly & pleasante citie which had been ther resting place near
twelve years,” Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn, the youngest son of a miller of
Leyden, turned his face, too, from the old toward the new. They sought
liberty to live and to worship according to the bright light in their
hearts: he, too, sought liberty to follow in a no less divinely appointed
path, impelled thereto by an irresistible force which, after half a
century, retained all its early vigor. They broke from the ways of their
fathers and bore an important part in the development of the great
American nation; he emancipated himself and his art from the thraldom of
tradition and conventionality and became the first of the great modern
masters of art.
The twelve-years’ truce between the humiliated Dons and the stocky
Dutchmen was now nearing its end, and Bradford says, “There was nothing
but beating of drumes, and preparing for warr.” This was one of the
reasons why the peaceable Pilgrims sought a new home beyond the sea. But
Rembrandt, already absorbed in his art-studies, saw nothing, heard nothing
of these preparations; his ears were deaf to the drum-beats, his eyes were
seeing better things than the “pride, pomp and circumstances of glorious
war”. There can be no question about his utter lack of interest in things
military. When, at long intervals, he tried war-subjects (as most men
sooner or later try their hand at the thing they are least fitted for) he
failed pitifully. He could create a masterpiece of a “Man in Armor,” or a
“Night Watch,” where the problems were purely artistic, and swords and
flags were simply bits of fine color, but the painting or etching that
breathed the actual spirit of war he could not produce. There is matter
here for rejoicing. War and her heroes have had their full quota of the
great artists to exalt their work. And now comes one who loved the paths
of peace. With brush and etching-needle he made record for all time of
the dignity and rare beauty which he found in ordinary hum-drum walks of
life. We may even say that he exalted doctors and artists, housemaids and
shopkeepers, yea even the very street-beggars, into such important
personages that their portraits are still eagerly sought after by the
great ones of the earth. It was during the lifetime of Rembrandt
(1606-1669) that much of the wonderful development of Holland took place.
She had come to her greatness gradually, but by the middle of the
seventeenth century she occupied a leading place among the independent
nations of Europe. Great discoverers, like Henry Hudson, had given her
new dominions east and west, and colonization had begun. On the sea her
flag was supreme; her merchant marine, going to and from her own
possessions was seen in every port of the world; her admirals, Ruyter and
Tromp, had won her an illustrious place forever in the annals of naval
warfare. These were the days of Milton and Ben Jonson; of Cromwell,
Gustavus Adolphus and Richelieu; of Murillo, Rubens and Van Dyck—days when
Holland had within her own borders such men as Barneveld, the great
statesman; Grotius, the father of international law; Spinoza, the
philosopher and John de Witt, the Grand Pensioner—besides that noble group
of artists: Hals, Cuyp, Ruysdael, Potter, Steen and Ostade. These days,
too, saw the settling of many states in America, the founding of Quebec,
New York and Boston.
Strangely apart from all these history-making movements, and from his
peers among men, dwelt Rembrandt, the great master, in Amsterdam, serenely
happy to-day in painting a portrait of his loved Saskia, to-morrow in
etching the features of a wandering Jew. He had given himself, body and
soul, to his art, and no man or movement of men could distract him from
his work. Year by year his busy brain and dexterous hand produced
paintings, etchings, drawings, in slightly varying proportion, but always
in amazing quantity. For his forty-one productive years we find to his
credit the average annual output of thirteen paintings, nine etchings, and
thirty-nine drawings. And these numbers would be materially greater,
doubtless, had we a full record of his work.
A few decades ago the ordinary person thought of Rembrandt only as a great
painter; that time has fortunately passed. Modern engraving methods have
made it possible to spread broadcast reproductions of his etched work.
Thanks to these mechanical engraving-processes some of Rembrandt’s
etchings are now familiarly known and, to a degree at least, they are
appreciated. No reproduction, however, can ever give the subtle quality
of the original, and a revelation comes to one who looks for the first
time on some brilliant, early impressions of his famous plates. The ink
is still alive; the Chinese or Japanese paper which Rembrandt generally
used, has sometimes gone very yellow and spotted, but oftener it has the
fine mellowness of age. We treat it with respect, almost with reverence,
for we recall that these very sheets of paper were dampened and laid upon
the etched plate, already prepared by the hands of the great etcher
himself. Each impression he pulled was as carefully considered as the
biting of the copper plate. He varied the strength of the ink, the method
of wiping, the pressure used; knowing the possibilities of his plate, he
so manipulated it that it responded to his touch as a piano responds to
the touch of a musician. The poor impressions and very late states, of
which, unfortunately, many exist, are generally the work of those
mercenary ones into whose hands the plates fell after his death—sometimes
even before. Like a man with no music in his soul attempting to improve
upon a sonata by Beethoven, these people not only printed, haphazard, poor
impressions having the master’s name, but sometimes even undertook to
rearrange the composition and often to rework the plate.
[No. 1. Rembrandt’s Mother.]
_No. 1. Rembrandt’s Mother._
A hundred years before Rembrandt’s time acid had been used to help out the
graver. Durer, among others, used it, and he employed also, but in
hesitating manner, the dry-point with its accompanying burr. Rembrandt’s
method of utilizing the roughness thrown up on the copper by the dry-point
needle was a development of its possibilities that no one else, even among
his own pupils, has ever equaled. It was much the same with everything
else: the burin of the professional engraver he handled so skilfully that
it is impossible to tell where the acid or the dry-point work stopped and
the reinforcing work of the graver began. When others tried to combine
these methods they failed. The hand of Rembrandt was the obedient servant
of his mastermind: so well trained was it that with a preliminary sketch
or without it, the needle produced on the smoked wax surface of the copper
the picture which floated before him, so correctly that the brain was not
diverted from the ideal picture by any crudity in the lines. If the
tools, methods, and effects which the great engravers had used suggested
anything to him, he freely took them up and bent them to his will. Making
free use of all, binding himself to none, he always remained the
versatile, independent student. And the strangest thing about it all is
that he appears to have recognized, grappled with, and forever solved the
problems of the art while nothing but a youth. One of the two etchings
which bear the earliest date (1628) and signature is known as “Rembrandt’s
Mother: Head and Bust” (No. 1.) It is a delightful little plate, drawn
with all the skill and freedom of a practiced hand. Frederick Wedmore, an
English authority on etching says that “nothing in Rembrandt’s work is
more exhaustive or more subtle,” and S. R. Koehler, an American authority,
called it “a magnificent little portrait, complete artistically and
technically,” and very truly refers to it as “a prefiguration of what was
to come.” A man of twenty-two years already a master-etcher!
[No. 210. Omval.]
_No. 210. Omval._
This etching measures just about two and a half inches square. There are
others about the size of a postage-stamp, while the largest one, “The
Descent from the Cross” (No. 103), is twenty-two by sixteen and a half
inches. The amount of labor on these large plates is overpowering, while
the workmanship in the smaller ones is almost unbelievably fine—think of a
child’s face not over one-eighth of an inch wide, and hands less than a
sixteenth of an inch across, yet really eloquent with expression!
Rembrandt accepted the assistance of his pupils, as who among the old
masters did not? He was, however, not practical enough to profit much by
them: he could work to much better advantage alone. Among his thirty or
forty pupils Ferdinand Bol, who came to his studio when only sixteen and
stayed for eight years, gave his master most assistance. Bol’s rendering
is at times very much like Rembrandt’s. Some critics think, for instance,
that he etched most of the “Goldweigher” (No. 167) and “Abraham Caressing
Isaac” (No. 148); both, however, are signed by Rembrandt. When these
pupils established studios of their own, they made free use of their old
master’s compositions, subjects and figures.
With Jan Lievens, his fellow student at Lastman’s studio, with van Vliet,
Roddermondt and other engravers and etchers of the time, Rembrandt was
on terms of great intimacy. They appear often to have worked on the same
plate, and to have borrowed each other’s ideas “without let or hindrance.”
Indeed, it is hard to comprehend the extent to which exchange of ideas was
carried at that time. Here is a good illustration of the way things went
without protest of any sort being raised. Hercules Seghers etched a large
landscape with small figures, after a painting by Adam Elzheimer and an
engraving by Count de Goudt, entitled “Tobias and the Angel.” This copper
plate came into Rembrandt’s possession; he burnished out Tobias and his
companion, and replaced them by Joseph, Mary and the Holy Child (No. 266).
To cover the erasure he added foliage, but the wing of the angel, the
outlines of a leg and various other unused portions of Tobias can still
be seen. Rembrandt’s reason for bothering with this plate is
incomprehensible. He improved it, undoubtedly, but the composite result
is exceedingly commonplace and reflects no credit upon any one. John
Burnet, the etcher-author, has drawn attention to the fact that the figure
of Christ in “Christ at Emmaus” (No. 282) is taken from one by Raphael,
who is known to have borrowed it from da Vinci, and it is thought da
Vinci, in his turn, got it from a former master. Rembrandt borrowed also
from Rubens, Titian, Mantegna, his pupil Gerard Dou, Van de Velde and
others. Many of his contemporaries and successors extended toward him
the same sort of flattery.
More than half the subjects of Rembrandt’s etchings are portraits and
studies of the human figure; about one-quarter are scriptural or
religious. There are two dozen landscapes, and the remainder are
allegorical and fancy compositions. We find then the two most productive
sources of his inspiration were the men of his day and the men of the
Bible. This book appears to have been the only one he knew at all well,
but of it he made excellent use. Despite the incongruities of his
Biblical compositions, despite the broad Dutch features, the modern,
gorgeous apparel and side-whiskers of the patriarchs, the pugilistic
proportions of his angels, his etchings have a truth and vital force that
there is no withstanding. Perhaps the very fact that he clothed his
people in a fashion that he knew well made his pictures the more
successful in reaching the hearts of men. In the all too realistic
“Abraham’s Sacrifice” (No. 283), in “Joseph’s Coat Brought to Jacob” (No.
104), in the naive “Rest on the Flight” (No. 216), and many, many others,
the story-telling quality is exceeding strong and the artistic work above
criticism. When we look at “David in Prayer” (No. 258), beside his
incongruous four-post bedstead, we cannot but feel that here penitence and
sincerity is forcefully depicted. The acme of Rembrandt’s religious work
was reached, however in “Christ, with the Sick Around Him” (No. 236)
(etched about 1650), which is often called the finest piece of etched work
that has ever been produced. It is a combination of pure etching and
dry-point, and in the second state, there is an India-ink wash in the
background. There are, I think, nine copies of the first state extant;
the last one sold at public auction (Christie’s, 1893) brought over
$8,500. While the Christ here is not so satisfying as the one in “Christ
Preaching” (No. 256) which is remarkably strong and noble, it is
Rembrandt’s typical conception of our Lord—always ministering to real
flesh and blood, the poor, suffering, common people. What a striking
contrast with the resplendent artificiality which surrounds the Christ of
the Italian masters.
[No. 290. Jan Lutma, Goldsmith and Sculptor.]
_No. 290. Jan Lutma, Goldsmith and Sculptor._
Rembrandt was his own most frequent model. He painted about sixty
portraits of himself, and among his etchings we find about two score more.
Some of them are large and finished, as the deservedly popular “Rembrandt
Leaning on a Stone Sill” (No. 168), which is a perfect example of the
possibilities of the etching-needle; others are mere thumb-nail sketches
of various expressions of face. He used his mother many times, and also
his wife and son. In all these is apparent a delightful sense of joy in
his work. Nor is this desirable quality lacking in the wonderful series
of large portraits of his friends: the doctors, the ministers, the
tradesmen of Amsterdam. Perhaps these were pot-boilers, as some students
of his work say, but surely never artist before or since produced to
order a group of etchings that, taken entirely apart from his other plates
would assure their author a high place among the greatest etchers. In the
whole lot there are few that some authority on etching or some great
artist has not held up as an example of work that even the master himself
never surpassed. But an artist cannot always keep himself at concert
pitch and when Rembrandt etched the portrait of his friend “Abraham
Francen” (No. 291) I feel that he struck an uncertain, almost false note,
unworthy of himself. We might, perhaps, account for this by saying, that
it was done in 1656, the year of his bankruptcy were it not that the
noble “Jan Lutma” (No. 290) which competes with the “Jan Six” (No. 228)
for the place of masterpiece of the entire series, was made the same year.
But he was an unaccountable sort of man who could produce in a poor, naked
studio, with untold trouble stalking him on all sides, such an etching as
the “Lutma,” such a painting as the “Syndics of the Draper’s Guild,” both
of which rank with the best products of his happy, care-free years of
luxury.
It is noticeable that Rembrandt had no sittings from persons of high
rank. So far as I can find “Burgomaster” is the most exalted title that
can with certainty be given to any of his patrons. The reason is not far
to seek. Rembrandt was not a courtier like Van Dyck and Rubens; he was
too independent and too busy to spend time kow-towing to society. A
contemporary says of him, “When he painted he would not have given
audience to the greatest monarch on earth.” He calmly set at nought
established principles and conventional rules, in etiquette as well as in
art, and followed the bent of his genius with absolute disregard for the
opinions of his fellows. The story of “Night Watch” is characteristic of
Rembrandt and shows the whole situation in minature. The members of
Captain Banning Cocq’s Company of the Civic Guards were flattered by the
offer of Rembrandt, then at the height of his fame, to paint their
portraits. The sixteen members destined to figure in the picture gladly
subscribed one hundred florins each, and great were their expectations;
but even greater their disappointment when the picture was placed on view.
All but a half-dozen felt that they had a distinct grievance against the
painter. Had they not paid for portraits of themselves? And they
got—what? Here a face in deep shadow, here one half-hid by the one in
front, here one so freely drawn as to be unrecognizable. The artist had
made a picture, to be sure—but their portraits! Where were their
portraits—the portraits they had paid for? Rembrandt had thought out
every inch of his picture: he was sure it could not be better, and change
it he would not. The resentment was bitter and deep, and the Civic Guards
in future bestowed their favors elsewhere.
There were, however, some fellow citizens who recognized his genius and
sincerity. These stood by him. Samuel Manasseh ben Israel, whom Cromwell
honored, was his neighbor on the Breedstraat, and an intimate friend.
Then there were Jan Sylvius and Cornells Anslo, the Protestant ministers;
Fan Asselyn and Clement de Jonghe, who were artists; Bonus and Linden, the
physicians; Lutma, the goldsmith, and young Jan Six, “Lover of science,
art and virtue.” These and a few others are known and honored to-day
chiefly because they were Rembrandt’s friends. His recognition of their
faithulness to him was shown in a much more permanent form than they knew.
Good impressions of his etched portraits of these men are still to be
seen. They are, like all his etchings, rapidly increasing in value. A
“Jan Six” sold recently for over $14,000; an “Ephraim Bonus” (No. 226) for
$9,000. To possess such a portrait of an ancestor is little short of a
patent of nobility. The Six family of Amsterdam happily have not only
Rembrandt’s oil-portraits of the Sixes of his day, but also good
impressions of the etching of the burgomaster, and even the plate
itself—that famous dry-point plate, which the artist worked on for weeks,
and which his critics have worked over ever since. Some of these critics
hold that even Rembrandt should not have attempted such complete tonality
in an etching, that Jan Six urged him to it, and that, in short, as an
etching, it comes near to the failure line. Other critics believe that
the artist’s idea was to show the utmost extent to which the art could be
carried, and that in so doing he produced a masterpiece. Middleton, for
instance, thinks that “it is not possible to conceive a move beautiful and
more perfect triumph of the etcher’s art.” Few, it is safe to say, can
see a good impression of an early state of this portrait without being
struck by its great originality and beauty, and upon closer study, I feel
a fair-minded person will inevitably fall under the spell of the
wonderfully drawn face and hands, the deep, transparent shadows, and the
soft, tender light which envelopes the whole.
[No. 183. Jacob and Laban (?)]
_No. 183. Jacob and Laban (?)._
[No. 228. Jan Six.]
_No. 228. Jan Six._
[Tobias and the Angel. By Hercules Seghers]
_Tobias and the Angel. By Hercules Seghers_
[(No. 266). The Flight into Egypt.]
_(No. 266). The Flight into Egypt._
Although Rembrandt had a few such cultivated friends as those mentioned
above, it was said of him by a contemporary German painter that “his art
suffered by his predilection for the society of the vulgar.” It certainly
would have been more profitable for Rembrandt if he had always portrayed
people of position and wealth, but that his art suffered because he many
times used beggers for models it would be impossible to show. An
interesting series of tramps, peddlers and outcasts began with the
beginning of his career as an etcher, and ended twenty years later with
the production of one of his most popular plates, “Beggars Receiving Alms
at the Door of a House,” (No. 233) a very freely handled, splendidly
composed etching, in which surprisingly few lines judiciously placed do
the work usually allotted to double their number. A little plate of less
than four square inches, entitled “The Quacksalver,” (No. 139), strikes me
as the masterpiece of this series. Although Van de Velde is supposed to
have given Rembrandt the idea for his drawing, his genius made it his own
in realism and movement, and in its beauties of line, color and texture.
“An Old Woman Sleeping” (No. 129)), although scarcely to be included in
this series, is another that has wonderful spontaneity. This is no posed
model, but one who has actually fallen asleep over her book; Rembrandt
sees her, and before her “forty winks” are over, she is immortalized, and
probably she never knew it. About 1640 Rembrandt began etching
landscapes. They are free and simple in composition and treatment and
show even greater force and more suggestive power than those that he
painted. Practically all of his two dozen landscape plates hold
undisputed first rank. They always have and probably always will. In
“Landscape with Trees, Farm-buildings and a Tower” (No. 244), the tower is
“ruined” in the third state. A first state print at the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts shows the tower in good preservation. One of these prints sold
at auction not long ago for over $9,000. Another of the exceedingly
satisfactory etchings in the series, one that has exercised a great
influence on landscape etching all the world over, is “Omval” (No. 210).
Its creator seemed fond of the fine old tree in this plate. He used it
several times elsewhere. “Six’s Bridge” (No. 209) which is almost pure
outline, and the “Three Trees” (No. 205), with its great sweep of flat
country, have a right to all the praise showered upon them. They, too,
are masterpieces.
While Rembrandt’s genius made itself manifest in his landscapes, it surely
is absent from most of his animal drawings. We must remember that if he
ever went outside of Holland it was for a few months to the east coast of
England, and that the opportunity for studying any great variety of
animals in either place was not great. His horses, asses, hogs, etc.,
improve as the years advance. The little dog with the collar of bells is
well drawn. He, undoubtedly, was a member of the family.
It is an interesting fact, at a time when the illustrating of books and
magazines is such an important art, to know that Rembrandt was offered and
accepted some commissions to make illustrations for books. These attempts
to give form to another’s ideas were not successful—in one case it was
such a failure as to leave it still uncertain what he intended to
illustrate. Vosmaer, his great biographer, says that this print “The Ship
of Fortune” (No. 106), pictures incidents in the life of St. Paul, while
Michel, another biographer, thinks that it illustrates events which gather
about Mark Anthony and the battle of Actium!
A score of men—Bartsch, Wilson, Blanc, Middleton, Rovinski, to mention a
few—have at sundry times and in divers places compiled annotated
catalogues of Rembrandt’s etchings. They, and other students like
Vosmaer, Haden, Hamerton and Michel, have given years to study and travel
in connection with their books on Rembrandt. All lovers of etching
appreciate this and are grateful. Nevertheless, it is amusing sometimes
to compare their expert testimony. About 1633 somebody etched a “Good
Samaritan.” Several of these experts regretfully, but frankly, admit that
Rembrandt is the guilty one. Others are sure that a pupil did the worst
of the work; Haden says it is entirely the work of another hand; while yet
another declares that of all Rembrandt’s etchings this particular “Good
Samaritan” (No. 101) is his favorite. Middleton, to give another
instance, thinks that the thick lines from top to bottom, in the fourth
state of the “Christ Crucified between Two Thieves,” (“The Three Crosses”)
(No. 270) are not Rembrandt’s work, for they serve “to obliterate, conceal
and mar every excellence it had possessed.” Haden, however, considers
that the time of darkness is represented, and that this particular state
is far the finest in effect. Much confusion arises from the fact that
sometimes all the states of a plate under discussion are not known to each
critic. The whole matter of states is a confusing one. The old idea was
that Rembrandt produced various states in order to make more money. But
it seems plain now that when Rembrandt changed a plate it was for much
better reasons than the making of a few guilders. We know, for instance,
that the “Jan Six” plate was changed twice to make needed corrections, and
that the second state of the first portrait of his mother simply carries
out the original design. On the other hand, it obviously could not have
been Rembrandt who made the third state of the “Jan Lutma,” with its hard,
ruled lines and great unnecessary window.
If in the days of hardship, when his son, Titus, peddled his etchings from
door to door, he could have foreseen the great army of admirers who three
centuries later should outbid each other at auctions, and make war in
print over his experimental plates, his failures and his trial-proofs—now
often exalted into “states”—the very irony of the thing would surely have
brought him genuine satisfaction and relaxation.
Rembrandt has said of himself that he would submit to the laws of Nature
alone, and as he interpreted these to suit himself, he cannot be said to
have painted, or etched, or done anything in accord with our
interpretation of recognized or well-grounded laws. With him it was
instinct, pure and simple, from youth to old age. He had no secret process
of painting or etching; but he had an amazing genius for both.
One October day in 1669 an old man, lonely and forgotten, died in
Amsterdam. They buried him in the Wester Kerk and, that he might not be
confounded with some other old man, they wrote in the “Livre Mortuaire” of
the Kerk, “Tuesday, 8th oct., 1669, rembrant van rijn, painter on the
rozengraft, opposite the doolhof. leaves two children.”
Of material things he left little; but the two children: Cornelia, his
fifteen year old daughter, and Titia, the posthumous, infant child of
Titus, would keep his name alive! Less than a score of years and the
family record comes to an abrupt end. No one to-day may claim descent
from Rembrandt, but his name has not perished from the earth, nor his
influence abated among the sons of men. His name took on new life when he
laid it aside; his influence strengthened when he ceased personally to
exercise it. Who of us is not his grateful heir? Who does not now do
loving reverence to this poor “painter on the rozengraft, opposite the
doolhof?” He surely stands among the immortals, one of the foremost
painters of all time, the greatest etcher that has yet appeared.
NOTE—The foregoing article was published a few years ago in _The
Craftsman_. Of the many commendations received at that time we print but
one:
“New York, Dec’r. 5, 1906. Dear Mr. Holman; *** I send you my special
thanks for your article on the etchings of Rembrandt. I have read it
carefully, and let me say plainly that I think is the best short treatise
on this great subject which ever I have read. The knowledge of the
subject as treated by many writers is so superficial—but yours is
profound. You have evidently made a serious study of your subject. Yours
very truly,”
(Signed) Frederick Keppel.
[No. 129. Old Woman Sleeping.]
_No. 129. Old Woman Sleeping._