With the collaboration: . And with the support of :

SELECTION OF TEXTS FROM THE CATALOGUE

Norbert Middelkoop, curator of the exhibition

“(…) In the artist’s earliest biography, dating from 1641, Jan Orlers describes it as follows: “And because his work and art had greatly pleased and impressed the citizens and residents of Amsterdam, and because he received frequent portrait commissions, as well as requests for other pictures, he decided to move from Leiden to Amsterdam. Accordingly, he left here in about 1630 and took up residence there, and is still living there in the year 1641.” This passage suggests that Rembrandt’s change of address from Leiden to Amsterdam was substantially due to the portrait commissions that awaited him there. And to think that the young artist had not really painted any actual portraits in Leiden, apart from a few self- portraits and tronies !

It is assumed that Rembrandt’s career in Amsterdam took off thanks to Hendrick Uylenburgh (1584/89–1661), the far older cousin to Rembrandt’s later-to-be wife Saskia (1612–1642). The art dealer most likely invited the painter to Amsterdam with the prospect of work, which would consist mainly of the production of portraits. Uylenburgh must have played a crucial role as an intermediary for the commission of the Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp of 1632, an early highlight in Rembrandt’s oeuvre due to its innovative composition and narrative qualities.

(…) Rembrandt was not alone in this practice, however, nor was he an isolated genius. In order to do him justice as a portrait painter and to be able to acknowledge his contribution to the genre, he should best be compared to other portraitists active in Amsterdam, something all authors contributing to this volume attempt to do. Before he arrived in Amsterdam, highly skilled and innovative painters such as Frans Badens, Cornelis van der Voort, and Werner van den Valckert had been taking advantage of the growing demand for portraits in that city during the first decades of the seventeenth century, followed by Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy and Thomas de Keyser. Their talents were able to flourish thanks to the booming Dutch economy, creating wealth among many. They were keenly sought after by those who needed their houses and meeting places fittingly decorated, from private individuals – whether they belonged to established Amsterdam families or were new immigrants – to civic organizations and institutions. Portraits became a necessity to anyone with enough wall space who strove to be remembered.

(…) Rembrandt’s exceptional achievements as a portrait painter can be better understood when we take into account that his ambitions did not initially lie in the field of portraiture. The biggest challenge for him, as for many artists, was the depiction of ‘histories’, stories from the Bible, classical antiquity, and mythology. In art theory, history painting was held in the highest esteem on account of the elevated subject matter, as well as the erudition and versatility it required from the artist. Crucial to the narration was choosing the right moment in the story, preferably a dramatic turn. Rembrandt’s most important contribution to

1

Amsterdam portraiture is without a doubt that, whenever it was at all possible, he applied the rules of history painting to his portraits.

(…)Rembrandt’s bold and at times sketchy brushwork, especially visible in his tronies and later portraits, has triggered much speculation about the artist’s aims: did he mean to depict the character of his sitters rather than their likeness? Although modern day scholars tend to keep their feet firmly planted on the ground when it comes to interpreting brush strokes as emotions, it cannot be denied that to most museum visitors, the secret attraction of Rembrandt’s portraits and tronies lies in these mysterious qualities, even after three hundred and fifty years. However, his true contribution to portraiture can only be valued when it is compared with the many excellent achievements of his contemporaries. Like other Amsterdam portrait painters, Rembrandt operated in a market that was subject to the laws of supply and demand, wherein the expectations of clients differed from each other and continually altered. Having initially been the leading artist in this field, with the passing of the years Rembrandt became estranged from the prevailing taste. Yet in our days, Rembrandt keeps surprising us, also as a portraitist, because throughout his career he never ceased to make the interplay with his clients and colleagues subject to his own unconventional artistry.”

Rembrandt, a Timeless Genius, Dolores Delgado

Rembrandt goes so deep into the mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language. Letter from Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo, October 1885

“(…) Rembrandt always remained true to his convictions, though: he was absolutely innovative and paid no heed to market demands. When in 1645 tastes shifted toward a more elaborate style, Rembrandt continued to evolve as an independently working artist, uninfluenced by the new trends. That is why he has been dubbed a rebel and non-conformist, a person who did not obey the dictates of society or the established rules .

Rembrandt painted himself from the start of his career to the end of his days, from the time he was a young, successful artist until he became a wise old man battered by life’s storms. The characterizations with which he appears in these works, especially his attire, are highly varied: he presented himself to the world dressed as a burgher, a beggar, an apostle, and a painter proud of his profession. Art lovers and collectors experienced great pleasure on discovering his self-portraits in history paintings, and the idea that his creation stemmed from internal, self-analytical reasons has thus been ruled out. (…) Rembrandt was highly influential on the art of his time, teaching many pupils his manner of painting. (…)His apprentices came not only from the Dutch Republic but also from abroad, like Christoph Paudiss (about 1630−1666), who was German. His last known apprence was Aert de Gelder (1645−1727).

In like manner, Rembrandt significantly influenced painting in the nineteenth century, when he was rediscovered by artists such as Eugène Delacroix and Honoré Daumier. He also impacted the work of twentieth-century artists, among them Marc Chagall, Francis Bacon, and Chaïm Soutine, to name but a few. Soutine painted several versions of Rembrandt’s Slaughtered Ox as a tribute to the artist. Vincent van Gogh was deeply impressed by Rembrandt’s Jewish Bride when he visited Amsterdam in October 1885, as he told his brother Theo. Great Spanish artists like Goya and Picasso also regarded him as an example, as evidenced by a comparison of their self-portraits. Picasso’s Portrait (Rembrandt and Saskia) is

2 linked to Rembrandt’s etched Self-Portrait with Saskia. Antonio Saura too mentions the artist in a book of essays.

Rembrandt’s vast influence also extends to other artistic fields such as literatura and film. To name but one example, Antonio Muñoz Molina revealed the importance of the artist’s Polish Rider in the Frick Collection in New York, after which he named one of his best-known novels. In addition, the painter has inspired several documentaries and films.

Rembrandt’s artistic legacy is incredibly vast, extending to drawing and also etching – a technique he mastered with extraordinary skill and in which he was as innovative as he was in painting. The thick and visible brushstrokes – a characteristic of his last period – are highly modern. The same technique is found in the Jewish Bride of about 1665, where the materiality of the impasto conveys an extraordinarily lifelike impression. Rembrandt was an outstanding artist, a genius of his age followed and admired during his lifetime and by later generations of artists, and he has had a profound influence on the history of art. Even today, three hundred and fifty years after his death, we continue admiring his fascinating work.”

Rembrandt and Portraiture in Amsterdam, Rudi Ekkart and Claure van den Donk

“(…) Once the city of Amsterdam became a Calvinist stronghold in 1578, commissions for altarpieces with donor portraits practically disappeared, whereas the demand for other types of likenesses increased exponentially. The potential clients were many. Firstly, there was the elite who played a role in the city council: the burgomasters, aldermen, members of the Council of Forty ( veertigraad ), and their often plentiful relations. In addition, there were innumerable Amsterdam citizens who had made a fortune through trade and manufacturing, but who had not yet permeated governmental circles. The city also had countless patricians who could not occupy a position in the local government owing to their deviant religion (Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Remonstrant). In short, in seventeenth-century Amsterdam there were thousands of potential clients looking to contract painters to make portraits of themselves and their families.

(…)A booming city with a high demand for portraits, Amsterdam attracted artists like a magnet. They came from outside the city walls – from other cities in the Dutch Republic, but also from foreign countries – to live in Amsterdam temporarily or for long periods of time. During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a wave of painters from Antwerp and the rest of the Southern Netherlands moved to the North. This migration was partly due to their religious beliefs but it also had to do with better economic prospects there. Later in the seventeenth century, artists from Germany, England, France, and other countries moved to Amsterdam too. Their arrival in the Republic was mostly motivated by their high expectations of success, but could also be the consequence of political circumstances, such as the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) in Central Europe and the Civil War (1642–51) in England.

Although the market for painters and especially for portraitists was large, competition was high and many artists failed to earn a reasonable income from the production of portraits on commission on an exclusive basis. Some were able to supplement their revenue through the production and sale of other types of paintings, while others provided for themselves with income from different sources. Many painters were also active as art dealers, whereas some worked as innkeepers, dealers in stone, or cloth merchants, among other professions.

3

Today, we can identify over one hundred and thirty painters who produced portraits in Amsterdam between 1590 and 1670 and whose work is still extant. Most of these artists also dabbled in other genres in addition to portraiture. About half of the portraitists living in Amsterdam at the time came from outside the city or had previously been active elsewhere. Only a few of the paintings executed by most of the identified artists are currently known to us, be it because they only incidentally practiced portraiture or because the rest of their oeuvre has not been discovered or rightly attributed yet. Contrary to popular belief, much research has yet to be done, especially in the case of the lesser known portrait painters.

(…)When Rembrandt first entered the portrait market in Amsterdam in 1631, Pickenoy and De Keyser were the two most important painters in that field. In addition to them, there were at least ten other artists producing likenesses in the city. Considering the increasing demand for portraits at the time, however, the supply of talented portraitists was not enough. That is why an entrepreneur like Hendrick Uylenburgh (1584/89–1661) grabbed the opportunity of recruiting promising artists to carry out commissions in his workshop. And even though it is not known exactly which Amsterdam portrait commissions went through Uylenburgh, he must have played a key part in introducing Rembrandt to the Amsterdam market.

Looking at Rembrandt’s early work in Amsterdam, it appears that at first the Young artist, who was still inexperienced as a portraitist, closely followed the compositions that had recently been produced and were in demand in the city. In his portraits, Rembrandt clearly aligned himself with older Amsterdam painters and their oeuvre. However, he did not limit his practice to blatantly repeating their designs without using any fantasy, but reapplied motifs in such a personal manner that they were transformed into true ‘Rembrandt portraits’. His individual likenesses reveal a familiarity with works by artists such as Van der Voort, Pickenoy, and De Keyser. Simple, monumental three-quarter-length pieces, like the portraits of the Brouaert couple of 1632, display a strong connection in compositional terms with the work of his direct predecessors and colleagues.

(…)Bust-length portraits generally offer less opportunities for comparison, given that the basic pattern of these compositions is more or less fixed and presents little room for variation. However, when we look at early half-length and three-quarterlength likenesses by Rembrandt, in which sitters are not portrayed in a standard pose, we see that the artist especially distinguished himself by incorporating a suggestion of action and movement into his compositions. A man who abruptly turns toward the beholder and holds out a note, a scholar who looks up from his writing, a sitter who twists his head over his shoulder to face the viewer, a man who busies himself sharpening a quill, and a woman who rises from her chair are all fine examples of this type of ‘action portraits’. In order to capture all of these poses, the young Rembrandt made use of his experience as a history painter, which had made him familiar with the incorporation of variation in his compositions and the need to keep the beholder’s attention through a series of inventive stances and suggestions of movement.

4