Attitudes: Critical, Admiring, and Curious Toward Rembrandt

Home , Constantijn Huygens, Joachim von Sandrart

Chapter 2 Attitudes: Critical, Admiring, and Curious toward Rembrandt

In his own century, Rembrandt was considered unsympathetic toward Italian art and culture. His contemporaries generally regarded his art as antithetical to the values associated with antiquity and the Renaissance. Yet Rembrandt’s first-hand expertise of both was wide and deep, as his collection and his art demonstrate. Placing him and his art in a known context was difficult for his audiences, who regarded him as extraordinary and anomalous. In his earlier paintings he aimed at eliciting the viewer’s response as a visual shock, and in his later work, as mute contemplation. These goals set him apart from his contemporaries who could variously approach his imagery with distaste, ad- miration, or curiosity.

1 Rembrandt’s Acquaintances Condemn His Disregard for Italian Values: Huygens, Sandrart and De Lairesse

Three authors who knew Rembrandt personally noted his apparent inatten- tiveness to the values of Italian art and antiquity: predictable figural propor- tions, idealized features and textures, contrapposto and grace, clarity of line, recognizable references to classical sculptural models, and literary erudi- tion. Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), Joachim von Sandrart, and Gerard de Lairesse (1641–1711) knew Rembrandt at the beginning, middle, and end of his career, respectively, and each approached Rembrandt with his own combina- tion of praise and censure. Huygens was the Secretary to the Stadholder and keenly appreciative of the arts as diplomatic currency; his travels in Italy and England brought him in contact with significant art collectors and their holdings. Sandrart, born in Nuremberg, worked as an artist throughout Europe, formed a grand art collection, and wrote extensively on ancient and current art. De Lairesse, a native of Liège, foremost painter in Amsterdam and author of two treatises on drawing and painting, did not venture beyond the Netherlands. Huygens effusively praised the young Rembrandt, and particularly his abil- ity to render the remorseful Judas, in the Judas Returning the 30 Pieces of Silver of 1629. Yet Huygens thought that if only he would see the art of Michelangelo

… I do however censure one fault of these celebrated young men [Rembrandt and Jan Lievens], from whom I can scarcely tear myself away in this account … hitherto, neither has found it necessary to spend a few months travelling through Italy. This is naturally a touch of folly in figures otherwise so brilliant. If only someone could drive it out of their young heads, he would truly contribute the sole element still needed to perfect their artistic powers. How I would welcome their acquaintance with Raphael and Michelangelo, the feasting of their eyes on the creations of such gigantic spirits! How quickly they would surpass them all, giving the Italians due cause to come to Holland…. Let me describe the pre- text with which they justify their lack of mobility. They claim to be in the bloom of youth and wish to profit from it; they have no time to waste on foreign travel.1

For Huygens, it was the first-hand travel experience that proved the value of familiarity with Italian art. Rembrandt responded that there was plenty of Italian art to be seen with ease locally, “of the sort most appreciated and col- lected … north of the Alps….” Thus he indicated that he had already studied it. This statement implies that there was current as well as earlier art readily accessible. For Rembrandt, travel was not necessary, as the prints, drawings, paintings, and plasters were available; literary accounts of Italian and ancient art provided commentary. Huygens’ perception of Rembrandt as stubborn and unwilling to take advice is prescient for the artist’s later conduct, as he became increasingly difficult with patrons and independent in his art. Huygens’s early regard for Rembrandt apparently cooled. This may have been due to the artist’s delay in complet- ing and delivering the Passion series for Frederik Hendrik, a commission ar- ranged by Huygens, and to the artist’s difficult dealings with his patrons; it may also have been due to the artist’s messy financial and personal circumstances after Saskia’s death in 1642. Huygens’ sons Christiaan and Constantijn Jr. had contact with Rembrandt in 1663 concerning a Carracci drawing, so it would seem that their father followed Rembrandt’s later production. Huygens followed the fashion for elegant precision in having Caspar Netscher paint his portrait in 1672 (Voorburg, Huygens Museum Hofwijck). Huygens’ appraisal of

1 Kassel/Amsterdam 2001, 398; Strauss 1630/5.