Jan 282022

DEFINING THE PRINCIPLES OF CONNOISSEURSHIP

Art History, Rembrandt No Responses »
I have just been re-reading the Getty catalogue which I had previously condemned outright but I now wish to exempt the second chapter, an essay on the history of Rembrandt scholarship by Peter Schatborn and William Robinson – “The History of the Attribution of Drawings by Rembrandt and his Pupils”” which I now find most useful.  I am prompted by it to define my own guiding principles and to explain why they differ so fundamentally from those of the founder,Woldemar von Seidlitz which on the face of it seem very reasonable.
Seidlitz made four levels of authenticity of which number one were drawings signed by the artist. This certainty was then to be matched with the lower levels. This sounds very sane; most artists would reserve their signature for works they were proud of but Rembrandt only signed 20 drawings and these were mainly reserved for autograph albums. One can imagine Rembrandt sitting in a pub and someone coming up with a request for a drawing. If he condescends he has to proceed without his usual group of models, one such works is a drawing of “Homer Reciting His Verses”. Being without his usual model groups he draws from imagination. I can find nothing good to say about it; it is signed and dated. I do not doubt it is by Rembrandt. Another such drawing is of “Jupiter with Philemon and Baucis” again done from imagination and corrected many times but in vain; it remains such a failure that Rembrandt himself has written the story on the drawing that he saw fails to tell the story itself. It is not signed but undoubtedly Rembrandt’s writing, therefore.category 1. The contemporary  records assure us that Rembrandt could not or would not draw from imagination; he is recorded as saying as much. I could site dozens of examples where he draws one figure from life and then adds very roughly from imagination the necessary group to explain the story. Any layman can see the difference.between Rembrandt’s observing or imagining. I hope this explanation shows that Seidlitz’s category 1 is unsuitable for Rembrandt though a good guide for others.
I have already explained the fundamental flaw in the establishment view – the idea that Rembrandt drew his biblical and mythological subjects from imagination. I definitively demolished that belief with my article Rembrandt’s Use of Models and Mirrors in the Burlington February 77. Unfortunately the Getty article gives no clues as to when that misconception arose nor of my alternative explanation of the hugely varied and great volume of drawings that might be considered as by Rembrandt. Certainly it was Benesch who pushed the reliance on imagination into the forefront of establishment beliefs where it remains to this day. because if one pays attention to the actors in the groups of his biblical drawings exchanging clothes and trying new poses one is bound to see that they were live actors being observed not imagined. (see the two drawings B.541 &B.542), Because of this failure the chronology for Rembrandt drawings is absurdly out of touch with reality.
Belief in the efficacy of the visual imagination in the hands of great masters is very old but I have given very good reasons for it to be abandoned. Also in my pre diploma zoom session using Uccello, Michelangelo, Holbein and Rembrandt as examples of artists whose best work is thrust to that position by observation, if necessary from 3-dimensional maquettes rather than life but certainly not from imagination.
Ernst van de Wetering has been associated with the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) since it’s inception in 1968-69 and became chairman after the first collapse when the older generation could not agree as to how to proceed and resigned en block. He remained chairman until the second collapse but has continued to write on Rembrandt. His recent book “Rembrandt, the painter at work” (1997) in which he devotes a whole chapter (Chapter 4) to the creation of the idea of a painting uses an anecdote told by Rembrandt’s student Hoogstratten in which a probably theoretical competition between three painters working entirely from imagination, each produce a painting in the space of one day by three different methods -  number 1 by practical experience 2. by working into the hazards of a fairly random spread of monochrome paint on the background of the canvas that look like    agate or number 3. through thought, a process of creating the painting in the mind before committing it to the canvas. Porcellis who won the competition used the last and van de Wetering uses an early self-portrait to demonstrate that Rembrandt follow this process. My assumption has always been that Rembrandt observed himself in a mirror for his self portraits. We have been told that he would not attempt a single brushstroke without a living model before his eyes and looking at himself in a mirror was the closest Rembrandt could get to that ideal for a self-portrait. But no, the chairman insists he is creating the picture in his mind; he also uses the painting on the front cover of his book. In the course of his chapter he suggest that the way a painting is conceived is a mystery. This 20 years after I had definitively shown that Rembrandt made a large number of preliminary sketches of the subject from a group of models; my article uses the deathbed scene which shifts between David’s and Isaac’s deathbed at Rembrandt’s whim. For instance a mirror image version of the model group actually cancels the figure of Solomon’s acolyte from the David deathbed  turning his head into a bowl of flowers on a bedside table, his shoulders. Otherwise the relationship between figures and furniture remain far too close to be able to suggest they happen by chance.
I do not deny the existence of imagination in Rembrandt’s conception of a painting. Obviously he had to have a vague idea of the difference he needed between Lastman’s idea and his own but in nearly every case the conception is taken direct from Lastman his teacher. It is in the execution that Rembrandt turns to reality for inspiration in the form of his model groups, which he carefully rearranged in his studio. That is how he turns Lastman’s concoctions into the believable dramas we know. There I insist on observation as the core of his method, certainty aided by the memory of the way humans express their emotions in normal life.Imagination plays a much smaller part in the art we have admired most, it is observation we are admiring.
In the case of a drawing I have analysed “Christ Raising a Sick Woman”  Rembrandt modifies his original drawing done by observing the two models he posed and then raising Christ’s effort from a vigorous pull to a more appropriate gesture of miraculous ease. The evidence of this happening is completely clear from Rembrandt’s modifications to the original. The fact that van de Wetering comes down so heavily in favour of imagination is contradicted not only by my observations in Rembrandt’s works but also by Rembrandt’s contemporaries’ repeated testimony. It is evidence of the impenetrability of art historical thought to new evidence that van de Wetering still insist on imagination.
Incidentally, I have never been given credit for the two collapses of the RRP  but I claim considerable credit for both. Though my voice is seldom heard in public I do represent by far the strongest opposition to the RRP’s disastrous mistakes. We need to go on fighting “the Amsterdam Mafia” to use Julius Held’s phrase, van de Wetering himself used the word Mafia to describe previous generations of Rembrandt scholars. It is impossible for them to avoid  thinking of themselves as the crème de la crème of scholarship. How else but arrogance can we account for their bulldozing of solid historical information and proven fact? Furthermore, they have got away with it so far.
Two Masters stand out from my refusal to accept imagination as the source of their work Raphael and Rubens. Both manipulated a formula of the lay figure with amazing confidence and dexterity. Many minor masters have  done the same with a good degree of success. It is just that Rembrandt who regarded work from imagination as “worthless” succeeded at an altogether higher level of psychological insight by observing live groups of models. He identified the space relationships between the actors as crucial: the outer expression of inner human feelings, for the first time,. Perhaps the most important leap forward in understanding of the human condition; certainly important enough to merit questioning expert opinion in this area.
Rembrandt probably learnt his trial and error method from his many drawings of actors rehearsing in the theatre; they probably tried different ways of expressing the necessary feeling and Rembrandt did the same on many occasions moving his models around and sometimes trying different gestures, one over the other,in the
I have just been re-reading the Getty catalogue which I had previously condemned outright but I now wish to exempt the second chapter, an essay on the history of Rembrandt scholarship by Peter Schatborn and William Robinson – “The History of the Attribution of Drawings by Rembrandt and his Pupils”” which I now find most useful.  I am prompted by it to define my own guiding principles and to explain why they differ so fundamentally from those of the founder,Woldemar von Seidlitz which on the face of it seem very reasonable.
Seidlitz made four levels of authenticity of which number one were drawings signed by the artist. This certainty was then to be matched with the lower levels. This sounds very sane; most artists would reserve their signature for works they were proud of but Rembrandt only signed 20 drawings and these were mainly reserved for autograph albums. One can imagine Rembrandt sitting in a pub and someone coming up with a request for a drawing. If he condescends he has to proceed without his usual group of models, one such works is a drawing of “Homer Reciting His Verses”. Being without his usual model groups he draws from imagination. I can find nothing good to say about it; it is signed and dated. I do not doubt it is by Rembrandt. Another such drawing is of “Jupiter with Philemon and Baucis” again done from imagination and corrected many times but in vain; it remains such a failure that Rembrandt himself has written the story on the drawing that he saw fails to tell the story itself. It is not signed but undoubtedly Rembrandt’s writing, therefore.category 1. The contemporary  records assure us that Rembrandt could not or would not draw from imagination; he is recorded as saying as much. I could site dozens of examples where he draws one figure from life and then adds very roughly from imagination the necessary group to explain the story. Any layman can see the difference.between Rembrandt’s observing or imagining. I hope this explanation shows that Seidlitz’s category 1 is unsuitable for Rembrandt though a good guide for others.
I have already explained the fundamental flaw in the establishment view – the idea that Rembrandt drew his biblical and mythological subjects from imagination. I definitively demolished that belief with my article Rembrandt’s Use of Models and Mirrors in the Burlington February 77. Unfortunately the Getty article gives no clues as to when that misconception arose nor of my alternative explanation of the hugely varied and great volume of drawings that might be considered as by Rembrandt. Certainly it was Benesch who pushed the reliance on imagination into the forefront of establishment beliefs where it remains to this day. because if one pays attention to the actors in the groups of his biblical drawings exchanging clothes and trying new poses one is bound to see that they were live actors being observed not imagined. (see the two drawings B.541 &B.542), Because of this failure the chronology for Rembrandt drawings is absurdly out of touch with reality.
Belief in the efficacy of the visual imagination in the hands of great masters is very old but I have given very good reasons for it to be abandoned. Also in my pre diploma zoom session using Uccello, Michelangelo, Holbein and Rembrandt as examples of artists whose best work is thrust to that position by observation, if necessary from 3-dimensional maquettes rather than life but certainly not from imagination.
Ernst van de Wetering has been associated with the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) since it’s inception in 1968-69 and became chairman after the first collapse when the older generation could not agree as to how to proceed and resigned en block. He remained chairman until the second collapse but has continued to write on Rembrandt. His recent book “Rembrandt, the painter at work” (1997) in which he devotes a whole chapter (Chapter 4) to the creation of the idea of a painting uses an anecdote told by Rembrandt’s student Hoogstratten in which a probably theoretical competition between three painters working entirely from imagination, each produce a painting in the space of one day by three different methods -  number 1 by practical experience 2. by working into the hazards of a fairly random spread of monochrome paint on the background of the canvas that look like    agate or number 3. through thought, a process of creating the painting in the mind before committing it to the canvas. Porcellis who won the competition used the last and van de Wetering uses an early self-portrait to demonstrate that Rembrandt follow this process. My assumption has always been that Rembrandt observed himself in a mirror for his self portraits. We have been told that he would not attempt a single brushstroke without a living model before his eyes and looking at himself in a mirror was the closest Rembrandt could get to that ideal for a self-portrait. But no, the chairman insists he is creating the picture in his mind; he also uses the painting on the front cover of his book. In the course of his chapter he suggest that the way a painting is conceived is a mystery. This 20 years after I had definitively shown that Rembrandt made a large number of preliminary sketches of the subject from a group of models; my article uses the deathbed scene which shifts between David’s and Isaac’s deathbed at Rembrandt’s whim. For instance a mirror image version of the model group actually cancels the figure of Solomon’s acolyte from the David deathbed  turning his head into a bowl of flowers on a bedside table, his shoulders. Otherwise the relationship between figures and furniture remain far too close to be able to suggest they happen by chance.
I do not deny the existence of imagination in Rembrandt’s conception of a painting. Obviously he had to have a vague idea of the difference he needed between Lastman’s idea and his own but in nearly every case the conception is taken direct from Lastman his teacher. It is in the execution that Rembrandt turns to reality for inspiration in the form of his model groups, which he carefully rearranged in his studio. That is how he turns Lastman’s concoctions into the believable dramas we know. There I insist on observation as the core of his method, certainty aided by the memory of the way humans express their emotions in normal life.Imagination plays a much smaller part in the art we have admired most, it is observation we are admiring.
In the case of a drawing I have analysed “Christ Raising a Sick Woman”  Rembrandt modifies his original drawing done by observing the two models he posed and then raising Christ’s effort from a vigorous pull to a more appropriate gesture of miraculous ease. The evidence of this happening is completely clear from Rembrandt’s modifications to the original. The fact that van de Wetering comes down so heavily in favour of imagination is contradicted not only by my observations in Rembrandt’s works but also by Rembrandt’s contemporaries’ repeated testimony. It is evidence of the impenetrability of art historical thought to new evidence that van de Wetering still insist on imagination.
Incidentally, I have never been given credit for the two collapses of the RRP  but I claim considerable credit for both. Though my voice is seldom heard in public I do represent by far the strongest opposition to the RRP’s disastrous mistakes. We need to go on fighting “the Amsterdam Mafia” to use Julius Held’s phrase, van de Wetering himself used the word Mafia to describe previous generations of Rembrandt scholars. It is impossible for them to avoid  thinking of themselves as the crème de la crème of scholarship. How else but arrogance can we account for their bulldozing of solid historical information and proven fact? Furthermore, they have got away with it so far.
Two Masters stand out from my refusal to accept imagination as the source of their work Raphael and Rubens. Both manipulated a formula of the lay figure with amazing confidence and dexterity. Many minor masters have  done the same with a good degree of success. It is just that Rembrandt who regarded work from imagination as “worthless” succeeded at an altogether higher level of psychological insight by observing live groups of models. He identified the space relationships between the actors as crucial: the outer expression of inner human feelings, for the first time,. Perhaps the most important leap forward in understanding of the human condition; certainly important enough to merit questioning expert opinion in this area.
Rembrandt probably learnt his trial and error method from his many drawings of actors rehearsing in the theatre; they probably tried different ways of expressing the necessary feeling and Rembrandt did the same on many occasions moving his models around and sometimes trying different gestures, one over the other,in the
Posted by nkonstam at 10:01 am
Jan 132022

Comparison – Rembrandt and Holbein

Art History, Rembrandt No Responses »
Rembrandt's copy on the left made from Holbein's original on the right

Rembrandt's copy on the left made from Holbein's original on the right

Rembrandt was rather careless in copying his own work (see my comments on his etching of a youth leaning back against a curtain. The preparatory drawing is beautiful but the etching is a travesty of it. The experts have deattributed the drawing!). But in this copy which absolutely must be by Rembrandt, he has actually improved on the original. Holbein was a master of drawing heads using Roman geometry but his figures are less convincing; here Rembrandt could be seen as giving a lesson to his chosen master of a previous generation, more likely the lesson is for himself. Sadly this very important drawing is not in any book of Rembrandt’s drawings that I know; I found it in a collection of reproductions either in The Hague or Amsterdam so long ago I cannot remember the location. I would love to have a better reproduction. This is a very poor photocopy. I would also like knowledge of its whereabouts. As far as I am concerned it is the best proof of Rembrandt’s interest in Roman geometry until his two scrapbooks of studies mentioned above come to light. It is therefore a very important drawing.
The Holbein is one of his best figure studies but it has nothing of the quality of his best heads such as Sir Thomas Cromwell or Jane Seymour which are so abstract that they convey the three dimensional presence with the clear logic of a geometric diagram. Here the figure is still sharply conveyed but lacks that certainty that a sculptor could rely upon.
I will attempt to convey why it is that the Rembrandt copy succeeds better; it is not particularly accurate, The head is broader than Holbein’s. The veils behind are at the wrong angle etc. What impresses me is the articulation of the polyhedra that compose the figure much more solidly than in the Holbein. Compare the shoulders and the top of her chest – Rembrandt uses the strap over her shoulder to define the shoulder  and where it meets the side of her chest, where Holbein defines only the garments. It is a subtle difference but crucial to the impression we receive. Reading the whole figure that is exposed down to the lower stomach, Rembrandt’s is a real believable woman where Holbein’s is a cleverly articulated puppet from which stimulus Rembrandt could be said to have imagined, using his memories, a real woman. I guess that the same level of imagination intervened between the mundane presence of his biblical models and the drama he often presents  us with; using the mundane, but necessary for him, stimulus  (see Homer above for what he produces without that stimulus).
It might be difficult for the layman to believe that a master of the stature of Rembrandt could not produce such works without the mundane stimulus but this lack is frequent at all levels among artists. I have shown it in the masters Uccello, Michelangelo, Holbein and Rembrandt but it is also found among ordinary artists today. The limits of the visual imagination have been misunderstood for centuries. The success of the formula – lay-figure plus anatomy has been sufficient to deceive us but it did not deceive Rembrandt. He made fun of the concept constantly (see his flying angels). Neither we nor the experts have caught on yet.
We have seen the huge gap in ability between Rembrandt the observer and the imaginer. Yet we all conjure images in dreams capable of stirring intense emotions, what is going on? There are several factors that intervene. A story I have often told of an Englishman trying to convince Rodin of the brilliance of Blake’s imagination described them as “real visions” – Rodin replied – he should have looked not once but many times. But of course visions like dreams cannot be conjured at will. In drawing a figure from life one might refer to the model 1000 times or more; this repetition is denied to the visionary. A draughtsman is trying to represent the three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface. This requires a number of perspectival tricks, like the changes in scale as forms recede into the distance and the rules of perspective. These are problems that a sculptor does not have to deal with that is why Michelangelo and others chose to make maquettes to draw from. The gap between Rembrandt as imaginer and his exceptional powers of observing is not in the least unusual among artists.
But he certainly was unusual in his behaviour to the point where I, who have no expertise in psychology, suspect he was quite well along the spectrum of the syndrome of manic depression and perhaps other syndromes as well. From early on he was able to persuade his family who had set their hearts on sending him to a legal profession, instead to send him to an apprenticeship with a local painter. From there they sent him to a well known painter in Amsterdam to continue his studies; he left in six months and set up shop with a younger but more mature student, Jan Lievens from whom he learnt a lot and indeed surpassed him within three years. All commentators agree that Rembrandt was exceptionally talented and hard working; though for me his early work did not show much promise. He was soon promoted by the secretary to the ruler of Holland from whom he was commissioned to paint six paintings of the passion of Christ. You might expect him to set to and produce them, in fact it took him six years to finally deliver the last – still wet!  He was paid half his asking price. All the letters we have from Rembrandt were in fact excuses for non-delivery till then. This failure to bow properly to authority was a permanent feature of his behaviour. Two or three commentators said he had no understanding of the importance of social class and kept low company.
As an artist he kept his own council to the end. In poverty and therefore without the band of students to pay for the model groups he resorted to self-portraiture as a subject he could continue to observe. “He was positively generous but nonetheless stooped to pick up low value coins that his students continually painted on the floor as a prank. “He was a first class practical joker who laughed at everyone” He was obviously a very popular teacher and a good one who commanded twice the going rate and in his heyday had many students. He did not treat them as assistants but instructed them conscientiously (see his two examples for Bol) who though a dud turned into a very passable and successful portrait painter under his instruction.
As an artist he was the least reliable master, shifting from exquisite to slapdash in both paining and drawing. It is difficult to make sense of him without taking into account his firmly held belief in “learning from nature and in no other law”.
His business behaviour was well within the etiquette of his day. He was extravagantly generous to his fellow artists, lending them his collection when needed and paying over the odds for their work  at auction “so there was never a second bidder”. Done  to raise the standing of his profession. At the height of his fame he painted “The Night Watch” without assistance. His fall from economic viability was part of a general economic collapse; as much bad luck as bad management (read “Rembrandt’s House” by Anthony Bailey, a journalist who writes often for The New Yorker rather than a Rembrandt specialist).
As a lover of the three women in his life he behaved well to two and badly to the third by all accounts.. He was a workaholic, working slowly but producing vastly, particularly taking into account his strong teaching commitment.
The experts have misinterpreted all this recently in an effort to bring Rembrandt down to their own understanding – he was a very big character but not difficult to understand seen from the right point of view, the artist’s perspective. They are word-smiths in origin, few of whom have any sympathy with those who learn on the job rather than from books. I am a dyslexic sculptor, one who will consult a cookbook or an instruction manual only as the last resort. I claim this gives me a natural affinity with Rembrandt. At school I showed little mathematical ability but nonetheless came top of the top when it came to solid geometry, this was because I could read with ease those diagrams which flummoxed the real mathematicians. I was naturally drawn to Rembrandt as my artistic ideas took shape. That was at least 10 years before I made my discoveries about him in the Dover paper-backs I bought to prepare for a lecture on Rembrandt that I had been asked to give. I read for the first time experts comments on the drawings and was horrified. That was the beginning of my career in Rembrandt studies. Career may be the wrong word as I have been kept not at arms length but bargepole length by the experts. Never invited to their symposia and on the one time I paid to attend one at the National Gallery (London) which had been advertised as wanting to include the public in the Rembrandt debate, I was refused permission to speak or show three slides by Christopher Brown, the gallery’s expert, with such determination the audience must have assumed I was a mad man.

Rembrandt was rather careless in copying his own work (see my comments on his etching of a youth leaning back against a curtain. The preparatory drawing is beautiful but the etching is a travesty of it. The experts have deattributed the drawing!). But in this copy which absolutely must be by Rembrandt, he has actually improved on the original. Holbein was a master of drawing heads using Roman geometry but his figures are less convincing; here Rembrandt could be seen as giving a lesson to his chosen master of a previous generation, more likely the lesson is for himself. Sadly this very important drawing is not in any book of Rembrandt’s drawings that I know; I found it in a collection of reproductions either in The Hague or Amsterdam so long ago I cannot remember the location. I would love to have a better reproduction. This is a very poor photocopy. I would also like knowledge of its whereabouts. As far as I am concerned it is the best proof of Rembrandt’s interest in Roman geometry until his two scrapbooks of studies mentioned above come to light. It is therefore a very important drawing.

The Holbein is one of his best figure studies but it has nothing of the quality of his best heads such as Sir Thomas Cromwell or Jane Seymour which are so abstract that they convey the three dimensional presence with the clear logic of a geometric diagram. Here the figure is still sharply conveyed but lacks that certainty that a sculptor could rely upon.

I will attempt to convey why it is that the Rembrandt copy succeeds better; it is not particularly accurate, The head is broader than Holbein’s. The veils behind are at the wrong angle etc. What impresses me is the articulation of the polyhedra that compose the figure much more solidly than in the Holbein. Compare the shoulders and the top of her chest – Rembrandt uses the strap over her shoulder to define the shoulder  and where it meets the side of her chest, where Holbein defines only the garments. It is a subtle difference but crucial to the impression we receive. Reading the whole figure that is exposed down to the lower stomach, Rembrandt’s is a real believable woman where Holbein’s is a cleverly articulated puppet from which stimulus Rembrandt could be said to have imagined, using his memories, a real woman. I guess that the same level of imagination intervened between the mundane presence of his biblical models and the drama he often presents  us with; using the mundane, but necessary for him, stimulus  (see Homer above for what he produces without that stimulus).

It might be difficult for the layman to believe that a master of the stature of Rembrandt could not produce such works without the mundane stimulus but this lack is frequent at all levels among artists. I have shown it in the masters Uccello, Michelangelo, Holbein and Rembrandt but it is also found among ordinary artists today. The limits of the visual imagination have been misunderstood for centuries. The success of the formula – lay-figure plus anatomy has been sufficient to deceive us but it did not deceive Rembrandt. He made fun of the concept constantly (see his flying angels). Neither we nor the experts have caught on yet.

We have seen the huge gap in ability between Rembrandt the observer and the imaginer. Yet we all conjure images in dreams capable of stirring intense emotions, what is going on? There are several factors that intervene. A story I have often told of an Englishman trying to convince Rodin of the brilliance of Blake’s imagination described them as “real visions” – Rodin replied – he should have looked not once but many times. But of course visions like dreams cannot be conjured at will. In drawing a figure from life one might refer to the model 1000 times or more; this repetition is denied to the visionary. A draughtsman is trying to represent the three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface. This requires a number of perspectival tricks, like the changes in scale as forms recede into the distance and the rules of perspective. These are problems that a sculptor does not have to deal with that is why Michelangelo and others chose to make maquettes to draw from. The gap between Rembrandt as imaginer and his exceptional powers of observing is not in the least unusual among artists.

But he certainly was unusual in his behaviour to the point where I, who have no expertise in psychology, suspect he was quite well along the spectrum of the syndrome of manic depression and perhaps other syndromes as well. From early on he was able to persuade his family who had set their hearts on sending him to a legal profession, instead to send him to an apprenticeship with a local painter. From there they sent him to a well known painter in Amsterdam to continue his studies; he left in six months and set up shop with a younger but more mature student, Jan Lievens from whom he learnt a lot and indeed surpassed him within three years. All commentators agree that Rembrandt was exceptionally talented and hard working; though for me his early work did not show much promise. He was soon promoted by the secretary to the ruler of Holland from whom he was commissioned to paint six paintings of the passion of Christ. You might expect him to set to and produce them, in fact it took him six years to finally deliver the last – still wet!  He was paid half his asking price. All the letters we have from Rembrandt were in fact excuses for non-delivery till then. This failure to bow properly to authority was a permanent feature of his behaviour. Two or three commentators said he had no understanding of the importance of social class and kept low company.

As an artist he kept his own council to the end. In poverty and therefore without the band of students to pay for the model groups he resorted to self-portraiture as a subject he could continue to observe. “He was positively generous but nonetheless stooped to pick up low value coins that his students continually painted on the floor as a prank. “He was a first class practical joker who laughed at everyone” He was obviously a very popular teacher and a good one who commanded twice the going rate and in his heyday had many students. He did not treat them as assistants but instructed them conscientiously (see his two examples for Bol) who though a dud turned into a very passable and successful portrait painter under his instruction.

As an artist he was the least reliable master, shifting from exquisite to slapdash in both paining and drawing. It is difficult to make sense of him without taking into account his firmly held belief in “learning from nature and in no other law”.

His business behaviour was well within the etiquette of his day. He was extravagantly generous to his fellow artists, lending them his collection when needed and paying over the odds for their work  at auction “so there was never a second bidder”. Done  to raise the standing of his profession. At the height of his fame he painted “The Night Watch” without assistance. His fall from economic viability was part of a general economic collapse; as much bad luck as bad management (read “Rembrandt’s House” by Anthony Bailey, a journalist who writes often for The New Yorker rather than a Rembrandt specialist).

As a lover of the three women in his life he behaved well to two and badly to the third by all accounts.. He was a workaholic, working slowly but producing vastly, particularly taking into account his strong teaching commitment.

The experts have misinterpreted all this recently in an effort to bring Rembrandt down to their own understanding – he was a very big character but not difficult to understand seen from the right point of view, the artist’s perspective. They are word-smiths in origin, few of whom have any sympathy with those who learn on the job rather than from books. I am a dyslexic sculptor, one who will consult a cookbook or an instruction manual only as the last resort. I claim this gives me a natural affinity with Rembrandt. At school I showed little mathematical ability but nonetheless came top of the top when it came to solid geometry, this was because I could read with ease those diagrams which flummoxed the real mathematicians. I was naturally drawn to Rembrandt as my artistic ideas took shape. That was at least 10 years before I made my discoveries about him in the Dover paper-backs I bought to prepare for a lecture on Rembrandt that I had been asked to give. I read for the first time experts comments on the drawings and was horrified. That was the beginning of my career in Rembrandt studies. Career may be the wrong word as I have been kept not at arms length but bargepole length by the experts. Never invited to their symposia and on the one time I paid to attend one at the National Gallery (London) which had been advertised as wanting to include the public in the Rembrandt debate, I was refused permission to speak or show three slides by Christopher Brown, the gallery’s expert, with such determination the audience must have assumed I was a mad man.

Posted by nkonstam at 5:47 pm