There is so much I disagree with in the Getty catalogue it will be quicker to name those parts with which I have no argument. There are two students of Rembrandt who though not great are perfectly decent workaday draughtsmen. Their names are Renesse and Hoogstraten. Their style of drawing is not like Rembrandt’s and therefore they have not benefited from the recent handout of drawings that the “experts” have de-attributed from Rembrandt’s portfolio.
I do argue with two others who come into the same category of good, workaday draughtsmen whose work does not in the least resemble Rembrandt’s but have nonetheless benefited from re-attributed Rembrandt drawings. Eekout and Flinck. By what convoluted argument they have been so lucky, the catalogue does not explain.
There is the strange case of Carel Fabritius who was a fine painter but left us no certain drawings. This is not unusual as some painters paint over their preparatory drawings, which were done directly onto the canvas (like Hals and Vermeer). CF has been gifted two very fine and typical Rembrandt drawings, on what grounds we are left to guess. Without comparisons there is nothing to argue about. But he is likely to receive more of the same in future madness.
Johannes Raven, is a comparative newcomer to Rembrandt’s supposed stable of assistants or students. He wrote his name on the back of a drawing, which while not being one of the greatest is almost certainly by Rembrandt. (Rembrandt did many careful drawings in preparation for his etchings, they have all been re-attributed. This looks like one of those.) Had Raven written his name on the front we could agree that he was at least claiming it as his work. However, by signing on the back, I would guess he was only claiming ownership. Surely we all write our names in books for that purpose. Luck was on Raven’s side, the “experts” have overlooked that possibility. A whole raft of life drawings by Rembrandt (mostly of his mistress Hendrijke Stoffels), are now re-attributed to Raven!
Most outrageous of all is the case of Ferdinand Bol whose work as a draughtsman scores a lot lower than the category of decent, workaday. Bol has benefited from a large number of really good or great drawings by Rembrandt. Rembrandt once gave him such a magnificent demonstration of draughtsmanship relating to his, Bol’s, painting of Hagar and the Angel. If, with eyes tight shut, we attribute that drawing to Bol there is no reason why he should not have done other great Rembrandt drawings. With eyes open this mirage vanishes. But the fact remains that at this moment Bol appears great, due to gross misjudgements. With little merit, he has had greatness, thrust upon him!
Those, like Bol, that have benefited from the handout, very much diminish Rembrandt’s stature and obscure his unique contribution to the art of drawing. We now see Rembrandt surrounded by a team of gifted mediocrities, who have made quantum leaps on occasion and who will in due course inherit more of Rembrandt’s greatness, unless, of course, we can unseat the present regime. The uncanny feebleness of modern scholars can only be the result of promoting the most loyal and unquestioning students over several generations of scholarship. They don’t seem to possess eyes or minds of there own. They religiously follow the now untenable theories of their teachers.
Benesch told us that Rembrandt’s “inner vision (of the Biblical subjects) was as if he had seen them in reality”. My experiments demonstrate that he “produced” them in reality by the use of models and that is part of the reason why they are so much more convincing than other artists’ inventions. Unfortunately, for generations we have been fed the idea that what is imagined is superior to what is observed. (Rembrandt himself would have laughed at such a notion.) It is therefore, difficult to persuade today’s art students that they should follow Rembrandt’s example and feed their imagination on reality. Thus, the mythology of Art History has undermined a well tried road to improvement. The “imagination” mythology is yet more dangerous because it diverts our attention from the real world in which we live. Without attention we will falter.
CONCLUSION I hope with these four critiques aimed at the most recent example of Rembrandt scholarship I have conveyed the urgent need for change.
The evidence I have put before you was all there in my Burlington article of February 1977, I have simply amplified it to the point where one can claim that there is no possible room for further doubt. Rembrandt did use large groups of live models, dressed in his extensive theatrical wardrobe, as in the “Adoration of the Shepherds”(see film on YouTube where it is possible to compare the paintings with the photos of the maquettes) on many occasions. An unbiased eye could have deduced the same from a fairly casual perusal of his collected drawings. The mirrors were a proof, which has still not been acknowledged. It needed a desparately biased collective eye to deny the obvious. Many thousands of students have had the wool pulled over their eyes since 1977. This must stop!