One of the most famous Dutch painters of the 17th century Rembrandt van Rijn was one of the most interesting artists of all time. His original dramatic paintings, full of contrasts between light and dark, are known all over the world. Rembrandt's work is incredibly varied. He painted historical paintings and portraits, paintings with mythological or biblical themes, landscapes and still lifes. His painting, especially in his later period, was ahead of its time. During his career he produced over 300 paintings, three hundred etchings, two thousand drawings, as well as many prints and engravings. The period of his work falls within the so-called Dutch Golden Age, the period of the flowering of Dutch society and its culture in the 17th century as a result of the country's economic development through colonial expansion. Rembrandt became sought after and famous during his lifetime and was soon considered the greatest Dutch painter. He remains a great role model for modern art emerging in the 19th century.
He was born Rembrant Harmenszoon van Rijn on 15 July 1606 in Leiden. His father Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn was a wealthy miller, his mother was the daughter of a baker and her name was Neeltge Willemsdochter van Zuitbroeck. He was their ninth child and, as the most gifted of the siblings, the only one to go to school. He attended a local Latin school providing religious education, as his parents wanted him to be a pastor. In May 1620, at the age of less than fourteen, he entered Leiden University, where he studied classical literature, grammar and rhetoric and gained an insight into classical and biblical stories. After a year he left school and became a pupil of the history painter Jacob van Swanenburgh for three years, and in late 1624-25 he was in Amsterdam for six months as a pupil of the painter Pieter Lastman, who had by then returned from Italy and was a great admirer of the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi, known as Carravagio. The latter used the technique of "chiaroscuro", i.e. chiaroscuro, a concept that Rembrandt later developed extensively, achieving a mysterious, even magical effect in his paintings.
In 1625 Rembrandt returned to his father's house, where he opened his own workshop. His earliest dated painting is "The Stoning of St Stephen" from 1625. He was a success, and commissions poured in because even poorer people wanted their own paintings; he offered prints to them. In 1628 he took on his first apprentice; an etching of an old woman, probably his mother, and an etching of his own likeness date from this year, beginning a series of self-portraits. In fact, he portrayed himself most often - it is thought that he painted and engraved some fifty or sixty of his own likenesses. A year later he painted a self-portrait in oil and was commissioned for the Dutch governor, the Prince of Orange, and the court at The Hague.
In 1631, Rembrandt, already a well-known and famous painter, moved to Amsterdam, where he lived in the house of the picture dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh and had a studio. It was at this time that his passion for collecting expensive clothing, lace, jewellery, paintings and prints began. He is even said to have crushed gems into his paints to make the paintings sparkle more. In the same year, he painted the famous painting of an autopsy, "Professor Tulp's Anatomy Lesson," as a record of a lecture when the anatomist was showing laymen the anatomy of an arm during the dissection of an executed criminal. A number of portraits of contemporary prominent Dutch personalities were also painted.
At Uylenburgh's house, Rembrandt met his cousin, the orphaned Saskia van Uylenburgh. Her father had been Lord Mayor of Leeuwarden and one of the founders of the second oldest Dutch university, Franeken (which no longer exists). They fell in love and were married in June 1634. Saskia was a wealthy bride and her dowry, together with Rembrandt's considerable income, enabled the newlyweds to live a life of affluence. They purchased a house near the neighborhood of wealthy Jewish merchants, where Rembrandt often looked for subjects for his paintings of scenes from the Old Testament. His wife also used to model for him. Today, the house serves as the Rembrandt Museum. From 1635, the painter taught at his academy. Unfortunately, tragedy struck the young couple - their first son Rumbartus died two months after his birth, and their other two children, daughters of the same name Cornelia, also died in 1638 and 1640 after only a few weeks of life.
A son, Titus, was born in the autumn of 1641, but Saskia's tuberculosis worsened and she died in July 1642, aged thirty. At this time, Rembrandt was painting one of his important paintings, "The Night Watch", commissioned by the guild of the local town guards; however, the commissioners did not like the painting very much, as some felt "left out". The painter hired a nanny for little Tito, the young widow Geertje Dircks, who became his companion after Saskia's death. In 1636, he painted her in his famous painting "Danae". After seven years, their relationship ended with court disputes over Saskia's jewels and a lawsuit against Rembrandt for breaking his marriage vows. Rembrandt, who would have lost his inheritance from Saskia by remarrying, had to pay Geertje alimony, but because she allegedly blackmailed him, he finally got her to end up in the women's reformatory at Gouda in 1650, where she died six years later. At the time of the disputes, Rembrandt was unable to paint a single painting.
At the time of the trial, he had already begun an affair with a young housekeeper, Hendrickje Stoffels, which lasted until her death, and he later painted pictures of her as "Bath Bathsheba" or "Bathsheba receiving a letter from King David". Both paintings were made in 1654, when Hendrickje gave birth to his daughter Cornelia. For "living in sin" with Rembrandt, Hendrickje was summoned to an ecclesiastical court and Rembrandt's commissions began to dwindle. It was also at this time that his financial decline began. However, he could not marry Hendrickje, as he would lose the rest of his inheritance from Saskia. To escape his creditors, he began to sell off his collections and in 1658 he had to sell his house. Due to local laws, he was not allowed to sell his works after his bankruptcy, so Hendrickje and Titus founded a company to trade in paintings in 1660 and Rembrandt became their supplier. At that time, they obtained a number of commissions for him from wealthy local families, and also from the Amsterdam City Hall. In 1662 he painted the painting "The Syndics", a group portrait of five clerks and an office servant.
Rembrandt was very frugal in life when it came to food or clothing, but he continued his passion for collecting as much as he could, despite his debts and poverty. In July 1663, Hendrickje died, probably of breast cancer. Sometime around this time, Rembrandt painted a picture called "Portrait of an Old Man," believed by experts to be a portrait of Jan Amos Comenius, whom he had met. In June 1665 Titus passed his matriculation examination and three years later married Magdalena van Loo, the daughter of a silversmith. Unfortunately, however, he died of the plague shortly after the wedding, and did not live to see the birth of his daughter Titia in March 1669. Rembrandt then lived alone with only his daughter Cornelia. He died in Amsterdam on 4 October 1669 at the age of 63, according to contemporary experts examining his last self-portraits, as a result of depression. His exact final resting place is unknown.
Gnews.cz/ wikipedia / Jana Černá
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