Rembrandt  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Hendrickje Stoffels, Rembrandt's etchings

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (July 15, 1606 – October 4, 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period that historians call the Dutch Golden Age.

Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, his later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardship. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, and for twenty years he taught nearly every important Dutch painter. Rembrandt's greatest creative triumphs are exemplified especially in his portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity.

In both painting and printmaking he exhibited a complete knowledge of classical iconography, which he molded to fit the requirements of his own experience; thus, the depiction of a biblical scene was informed by Rembrandt's knowledge of the specific text, his assimilation of classical composition, and his observations of Amsterdam's Jewish population. Because of his empathy for the human condition, Kenneth Clark called him "one of the great prophets of civilization."

Selected works

• Woman Stepping into a Stream[1].
• The Woman Taken in Adultery
• Jacob de Gheyn III (1632) - Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, England
• Andromeda Chained to the Rocks (1631) - Mauritshuis, The Hague
• Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1631) - Mauritshuis, The Hague
• Artemisia (1634) - Oil on canvas, 142 x 152 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid
• Descent from the Cross (1634) - Oil on canvas, 158 x 117 cm, looted from the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), Germany in 1806, currently Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
• Belshazzar's Feast (1635) -National Gallery, London
• The Prodigal Son in the Tavern (c. 1635) - Oil on canvas, 161 x 131 cm Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
• Danaë (1636) - State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
• The Night Watch, formally The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq (1642) - Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• Christ Healing the Sick (Etching c. 1643, also known as The Hundred Guilders Print) , nicknamed for the huge sum paid for it
• The Mill (1645/48) - The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Susanna and the Elders[2] (1647) - Oil on panel, 76 x 91 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
• Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer (1653) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Bathsheba at Her Bath (1654) - Louvre, Paris
• Selfportrait (1658) - Frick Collection, New York
• The Three Crosses (1660) Etching, fourth state.
• Ahasuerus and Haman at the feast of Esther - Pushkin Museum, Moscow
• Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (1661) - Nationalmuseum, Stockholm) (Claudius Civilis led a Dutch revolt against the Romans) (most of the cut up painting is lost, only the central part still exists)
• Syndics of the Drapers' Guild (Dutch De Staalmeesters, 1662) - Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• The Jewish Bride (1664) - Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam