Dear Colleagues,
I have devoted perhaps a quarter of my life’s energies to saving Rembrandt, despite the fact that my efforts clearly earn me negative brownie points with the powers that be. At considerable expense I published three news-sheets 1991-2-3 to alert people to what has been going on. More recently I have put up www.saveRembrandt.org.uk which gives a pretty full account of what I see in Rembrandt and what the “experts” fail to see. I have received many verbal endorsements from artists, students and The Save Rembrandt Society but I need public written endorsements or my lonely crusade will founder and be forgotten.
Recently at The Getty in Los Angeles there is an exhibition of Rembrandt and his Students’ Drawings, which undoubtedly propagates the establishment’s judgments made over the last 30 years. Many ludicrous judgments have already entered the annals of art history (in the catalogues of The British Museum, The Rijksmusem and the Boymans in Rotterdam) I am thinking particularly of those where perfectly obvious studies for well known Rembrandt etchings have been de-attributed because the scholars want him to be bolder, not as “tentative” as in his etchings!
Now is the time to act, if you do not these very damaging judgments will blight Rembrandt’s reputation for many years to come. Do not expect art historians to be self regulating after 35 years of silent acquiescence in the ludicrous judgments of the “experts”.
I surely need not remind you of the negative effect Rembrandt’s fall from grace has already had on the teaching of art. At the age of 77 I cannot hope to be around for another such opportunity as The Getty presents. I am reconstituting The Save Rembrandt Society as an internet blog. You will find it [coming soon] on www.verrocchio.co.uk. No fees required, just support. Please become a member and comment.
If I am mistaken I want to know why.
Sincerely,
Nigel Konstam