The Mentor Rembrandt 4

The Mentor Rembrandt 4

Rembrandt and Raphael_

 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A MAN

 

Altman Collection of Metropolitan Museum, New York]

 

To carry out the thought in illustration, it may be said that

Rembrandt, the great Dutchman, was the very opposite of Raphael, the

great Italian. He painted no allegories on Vatican walls, was not

led away by Renaissance revivals of Greek form, dreamed no dreams

of uniting pagan types with Christian ideals. Even technically he

was widely different from Raphael. He painted the easel picture in

oils, had no love whatever for Italian line and composition, did all

his drawing and modeling by catches of shadow, and produced his most

startling effects by the dramatic use of light and color. In all this

Rembrandt was merely reflecting his time and his people in his own

ingenious way. He was emphatically true to the Dutch point of view, and

today his art is full of truth, force, vitality, character. In fact,

that word “character” is the keynote to all his work. It furthermore

explains that æsthetic paradox, sometimes applied to Rembrandt, “the

beauty of the ugly.” For many of his people are ugly, if we regard them

for the straightness of their foreheads and noses, the oval of their

chins, or the proportions of their figures; but they are beautiful

in their simplicity of presence, their unconscious sincerity, their

profound truth of character.

 

[Illustration: THE ARCHITECT

 

In the Gallery at Cassel, Germany]

 

 

_Rembrandt as a Leader_

 

No country in Europe produced a finer quality of art, or a more learned

school of craftsmen, than Holland. There was a master genius there as

elsewhere, and that genius was Rembrandt. He came when Holland had

reached her highest pitch of power--came on the crest of the wave of

which he and his fellow painters were the light and color. He has been

acclaimed as her great painter and he deserves that title, for of all

the Dutch masters he was practically the only one who was universal in

his scope. His art alone, in its appeal, travels beyond the confines

of the Netherlands. What he has to say is world-embracing, and finds

sympathetic response with all peoples. He is profound in his humanity,

in his penetration into life problems, in his sympathy with his fellow

man. The poor, mean-looking Amsterdam Jews that he portrayed in so many

of his pictures are pathetic in their humility, their suffering, their

patience. He was always taking for models the humble, the despised, the

lowly. His heart seemed to go out to them.

 

 

_His Biblical Pictures_

 

And with such types what a new interpretation he gave the Bible! How he

realized Bible truth and brought it home to his own people by using the

Jew of the quarter and the boor of the polder for models! Look at the

“Supper at Emmaus”--look for the intensity of the types rather than for

any regularity of form. What pathos in the pale, blue-lipped Christ,

with the phosphorescent glimmer of the tomb about the architecture at

the back! What amazement in the disciples at the table! What fear in

the boy bringing in the dish! This was perhaps the first time in art

that the “Supper at Emmaus” was made real and believable. The story

was not only realized, but humanized. All of Rembrandt’s Biblical

pictures were of this nature. Look again at the “Manoah’s Prayer,” or

the “Tobit and the Angel,” or the “Sacrifice of Abraham.” They are

Dutch types again, in Dutch costumes and surroundings. Rembrandt knew

very well that the Biblical characters were not Dutch in type, and

that the people in the time of Christ did not dress like the boors

and burghers of Holland. He purposely painted his own people in their

native costumes, that he might the better and the more forcefully bring

realization home to them. It was not, is not, affectation. Study the

Manoah and his wife, the Abraham, the family of Tobit on the doorstep,

and you cannot find in all art people of more unconscious sincerity.

Rembrandt believed in them. And that is why you and I believe in them

today.

 

 

_Rembrandt as a Portrait Painter_

 

[Illustration: JAN HERMANSZ KRUL

 

In the Gallery at Cassel, Germany]

 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JOHN SIX

 

In the Six Gallery, Amsterdam]

 

[Illustration: WOMAN WITH PINK

 

In the Gallery at Cassel, Germany]

 

Rembrandt painted many Biblical pictures, which are at present widely

scattered throughout the European galleries. In all of them he gave a

new interpretation, a profound insight, a real meaning, to scriptural

story. In addition he painted many figure compositions of a historical

or mythological cast. But his great success, after all said and done,

was with the portrait. His technical methods were well suited to the

portrait, and he was unsurpassed in giving the truth of presence in

his sitter. The quiet dignity of his Dutch burghers, their repose

and simplicity, the complete absence of anything like pretense about

them, made up Rembrandt’s point of view; but to this he added a

cunning hand and a technical skill that were wonderful. How superbly

with his catches of light and shade he could draw an eye, a forehead,

a nose, a chin! How instantly and inevitably he caught the salient

feature and turned it by sharp emphasis into positive __EXPRESSION__! What

significance he could get out of an outstretched hand, a bent back, a

bowed head! These were features wherewith he proclaimed the character

of his sitter. The “Portrait of an Old Lady,” in the National Gallery,

London, has the flabby cheek, the trembling lip, the wrinkled brow of

the aged; but you can also see that hers has been a life of suffering,

and that the eyes have often been blinded with tears. On the contrary,

the “Portrait of a Man”--the so-called Sobieski, at Petrograd, has the

determination and force of the warrior. It has grip and firmness and

courage about it. These are not only in the features, but Rembrandt has

even put them in the brush work--the manner of handling. Again, by way

of contrast, the heads in the “Lesson in Anatomy” are put in calmly,

serenely, inevitably just right. What intelligence, seriousness, and

living presence they have! They are what might be called speaking

likenesses, in the sense that all they lack of life is speech. And what

can one say that will adequately describe the loveliness of mood, the

eternal womanly, in the “Portrait of Saskia,” at Cassel! It is a wonder

as a piece of color, but still more wonderful as a characterization

of the painter’s wife. Once more, for a further contrast, look at the

“Portrait of Coppenol.” He is supposed to be a writing master because

he is sharpening a quill pen, but whatever his profession or pursuit,

have you any difficulty in seeing here a dull-witted person of very

limited intelligence? The very fatness of the forehead, so remarkable

in its realistic rendering, the narrow eyes, with their vacant stare,

the pumpkin cheeks and head, the soft, lazy hands, seem to point to

some clerk or pedagogue, who had not enough brains to know that he

wanted more.

 

Rembrandt was easily one of the great group of portrait painters with

Titian, Velasquez, and Holbein. And by this I mean no faint praise.

It seems to be thought in some quarters that portraiture is somehow

an inferior branch of painting. It is said to require no invention or

imagination. But nothing could be more mistaken than such an idea. When

we speak of Rembrandt, Titian, Velasquez, and Holbein we are speaking

of the world’s great masters, and perhaps their most satisfactory

masterpieces are their portraits. A painter who can adequately portray

his fellow man, as Rembrandt did, has practically said the last word in

art. That Rembrandt had this gift and accomplishment is evidenced by

the high esteem in which his work is held by painters even to this day.

 

[Illustration: THE NIGHT WATCH

 

In the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam

 

A fine gravure reproduction of this painting appears in The Mentor,

Number 17, “Dutch Masterpieces.”]

 

 

_His Technical Method_

 

There was no trick about Rembrandt’s painting. He was no slave to a

peculiar color, canvas or brush. He painted at times with a palette

knife: at other times with his thumb. He kneaded the surface, ploughed

through it when it was wet, did almost anything to get effects by

catches of light and shade whereby he drew and modeled. But none of

these small peculiarities explains his technical success. His methods

were sound enough, and for the most part were known before his day;

but he applied them better and increased their carrying power. He

has been called the master of light and shade, and so, indeed, he

was within a limited range. It was the same light and shade known to

Leonardo, Giorgione, and Carravagio, and probably Rembrandt got it from

pictures of the Neapolitan School, though he never was in Italy. But

Rembrandt improved upon the Italian method of using shadow. He made it

transparent, enveloping, mysterious. And its antithesis, light, he made

penetrating and dramatic by putting it in sharp contrast. Out of the

two he got wonderful effects. In doing the portrait head, for instance,

he threw his highest light on the collar, the nose, the chin, the

forehead. This high light ran off quickly into half-light and then into

shadow, so that by the time the ear or side of the neck was reached,

dark, even black, notes were used. The decrease was rapid; in fact

often violent, but this only served to focus the attention more keenly

upon the dominant features of the face. The result was what has been

called “forced,” but it was very effective. It was the same effect that

one sees today at the opera, when the chief actor is in the spot-light

and the rest of the stage is in gloom.

 

[Illustration: SYNDICS OF THE CLOTH HALL

 

In the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam

 

A fine gravure reproduction of this painting appears in The Mentor,

Number 8, “Pictures We Love to Live With.”]

 

 

_The Night Watch_

 

But this violent focusing of light had its limitations even in

Rembrandt’s hands. The “Night Watch” exemplifies them. This was to be

a portrait group of the sixteen members of the Frans Banning Cock

Shooting Company. The members wanted their portraits painted in a

group, after t