The Mentor Rembrandt 5

The Mentor Rembrandt 5

That is about the only criticism that can be lodged against the

“Night Watch.” Light and color have both been sacrificed to shadow;

but when that is conceded the picture still remains a marvel of

color, shadow, and atmosphere, and a wonder of life and action.

The movement--the bustle of it--is superb. The Captain and his

Lieutenant in the foreground are in full light, but back of them and

around them, emerging out of the gloom, are nebulous heads, flashing

casques, plumes, halberds, guns, drums, dogs, street urchins--all the

belongings of a militia company on parade. They are not only wonderful

in their action, but in their mystery of appearance, coming out of

shadow depths into light. Of course, the picture was not entirely

satisfactory to the sixteen. They had bargained for their portraits,

and little knew then how cheaply they were purchasing immortality.

Those in the background complained that they were not sufficiently

spot-lighted, not treated with sufficient importance; in fact,

subordinated to those in the front row. But the picture, as a picture,

is certainly successful, is a great favorite with all art-lovers, and

in the Ryks Museum in Amsterdam, where it now hangs, it is considered

one of the world’s great masterpieces. Truer lighting--that is truer to

the facts of general illumination--is seen in the earlier “Lesson in

Anatomy” and the later “Syndics of the Cloth Hall,” but neither picture

has the fascination nor the imagination of the “Night Watch.”

 

 

_Rembrandt’s Styles_

 

[Illustration: THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM

 

In the Old Pinacothek, Munich]

 

[Illustration: THE ANGEL LEAVING TOBIT

 

In the Gallery of the Louvre, Paris]

 

[Illustration: BLESSING OF JACOB

 

In the Gallery at Cassel, Germany]

 

Rembrandt’s work is usually divided into three different periods.

At first his method of handling was calm, measured, even at times

smooth. His light and color were gray, as also his backgrounds. This

period has been called his “gray period.” The “Lesson in Anatomy,”

the “Sacrifice of Abraham,” the “Coppenol,” the “Elizabeth Bas,” the

“Old Lady” of the National Gallery, London, all illustrate this early

manner. It was gradually encroached upon and finally superseded by

a fuller, freer handling of the brush, with much warmer color and

light, tending toward reddish gold. This has been called his “golden

period,” and marks the midday of his career. The beautiful “Saskia,”

at Cassel, and the so-called “Sobieski,” at Petrograd, illustrate

the beginning of this period--the changing from gray to warmer notes

of red, yellow, and gold. The “Woman with the Pink,” at Cassel, the

“Manoah’s Prayer,” at Dresden, the “Night Watch,” were done further

along in this middle period. It was the time when Rembrandt was in

his full strength, saw comprehensively, handled a full palette of

color, and was almost infallibly accurate with his hand. In his

third and last period Rembrandt’s work became rather hot and foxy in

color, dark in illumination, kneaded and thumbed in the surface, and

sometimes uncertain in drawing. He was expanding into a larger view

and vision up to the last--seeing objects in their broader relations

and proportions rather than in their surfaces. Toward the close he

often slurred the surfaces, neglected textual qualities, and threw his

whole force into the rendering of mass in relation to light, air, and

color. The pictures of this period are hard for the beginner in art to

understand, because he is misled by the roughness of the surfaces, the

messy state of the pigments, the apparent fumbling, kneading, rubbing

out and amending, of the brush work. But, as we have said, Rembrandt

was purposely slurring surface truths for the greater truths of bulk,

weight, and general relationship. The best example of this late work

among our illustrations is the “Syndics of the Cloth Hall,” in the Ryks

Museum, Amsterdam. In it Rembrandt went back to his early method of

lighting, but continued with his late manner of handling and coloring.

It is superbly broad in vision, absolute in its truth to life, and

convincing in its incident. The cloth merchants are seated about a

table, perhaps figuring up their year’s balance, when someone opens the

door to enter and they all look up to see the incomer. Nothing could

be simpler, more direct, or truer. Rembrandt never painted anything

better. For here he completely fulfilled expectations. Many of his

later canvases he could not complete. The “Blessing of Jacob,” at

Cassel, for instance, he probably gave up in despair, or was working

upon at the time of his death. He had reached a pitch in his career

when he saw and strove for things that his hand or brush could not

realize or pin down to canvas. That is the great stone wall that even

genius encounters and cannot surmount.

 

 

_The Master’s Life_

 

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY

 

In the National Gallery, London]

 

The story of Rembrandt’s career is recited elsewhere in this number

of The Mentor, but it may be said here that it was not different from

that of many other painters. He came up to Amsterdam from the outlying

country, and achieved celebrity at an early age. Praise and pay and

pupils poured in upon him. He married the beautiful Saskia and was

happy. But as he expanded in vision and methods he went beyond the

understanding and the appreciation of his public. His pupils, such

as Bol and Flinck, who had a more commonplace point of view, and a

smoother, prettier style of painting, outdid him in public favor. The

public began to desert him, the fair Saskia died, the great master fell

upon evil days, and finally passed out in penury and want--evidently

neglected and possibly forgotten by the age and people he had done so

much to glorify. The record of his death in the Burial Book of the

Wester Kirk, Amsterdam, is pathetic in its meagerness. “Tuesday, 8th

Oct., 1669. Rembrandt van Rijn, painter on the Roozegraft, opposite

the Doolhof. Leaves two children.” It almost looks as though he were

identified only by the squalid quarters in which he died. And this

was Rembrandt, the greatest master north of the Alps, and a genius of

almost Shakespearian quality!

 

 

_Many Pictures Attributed to Him_

 

[Illustration: SASKIA VAN ULENBURGH

 

In the Gallery at Cassel, Germany

 

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

Number 28.]

 

It seems that not only was Rembrandt and his art misunderstood in his

own time, but that he is still misunderstood at the present time. This

is in measure due to many pictures which are mistakenly attributed to

him. One need not be an expert to find it strange that of twenty pupils

of Rembrandt, who painted more or less in his style, there remain

hardly twenty pictures apiece, and of some of them not even one. What

paralyzed their hands or destroyed their works? What became of their

pictures? You begin to get a glimmer of light when you understand that

to Rembrandt there are assigned a thousand or fifteen hundred examples;

that these are painted in fifteen or twenty different styles, though

all superficially resembling Rembrandt’s style. Almost everything that

is Rembrandtesque, or even casually resembles Rembrandt, has been

signed up and sold as his since the master came back to popular favor.

The name is one that now brings thousands of dollars in the auction

room, and what wonder that it is often misused!

 

These Rembrandtesque pictures were done by other hands than his, are

pupils’ works, or school work or copies, or, in a few cases, forgeries.

Rembrandt’s work has never been critically studied as that of Leonardo

or Giorgione (jore-joe´-nee). Strange, again, is it not, that Leonardo

and Giorgione in the final analysis should have less than a dozen

pictures apiece left to them, while Rembrandt should still be given

his thousand? Northern art has not had a critical searchlight turned

upon it, as had Italian art thirty years ago. When it does, the present

catalogue of Rembrandts will crumble. In the meantime, the art student

would better accept Rembrandt only in his best authenticated works,

such, for instance, as are reproduced in this number of The Mentor.

Half of the so-called Rembrandts in the European galleries are now to

be taken with a grain of salt. They may be, and often are, exceedingly

good pictures, but they are not by Rembrandt.

 

 

_SUPPLEMENTARY READING_

 

GREAT MASTERS OF DUTCH AND FLEMISH PAINTING _Bode_

London, 1909.

 

OLD MASTERS OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND _Fromentin_

Boston, 1882.

 

THE DUTCH SCHOOL OF PAINTING _Havard_

London, 1885.

 

REMBRANDT _Michel_

New York, 1894.

 

REMBRANDT _Verhaeren_

(Les Grands Artistes), Paris.

 

REMBRANDT _Vosmoer_

Paris, 1877.

 

REMBRANDT _Valentiner_

(Klassiker die Kunst), Stuttgart.

 

REMBRANDT, A STUDY OF HIS LIFE AND WORK _Brown_

New York, 1907.

 

⁂ Information concerning the above books and articles may be had on

application to the Editor of The Mentor.

 

 

 

 

_THE OPEN LETTER_

 

 

“Why are pictures repeated,” asks one of our readers. We rarely

repeat a picture, but we _do_ print more than one picture of the

same subject--and for a most excellent reason: The Mentor is not

through with a subject in one number. That would be a poor and meager