Jan 282022
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