There are artists in the past that established new pathways of creativity in many different mediums. Rembrandt van Rijn was one of those great artists. Largely known as a portrait painter, when one stands in front of an actual Rembrandt portrait you are mesmerized by the myriad of color layers. His technique was unique. After completing a portrait he would let it dry, then he would add a brown wash of oil paint and oil over the canvas. The brown wash would sink into the groves that the brush had made giving the painting a more unified and dramatic color.
The name Rembrandt is known for excellence and high quality. People often refer to any job done well as being “A Rembrandt!”. He is mostly known for his large series of over 60 self portraits depicting his aging. His honesty in his depictions do not hold anything back. Every wrinkle and worrisome look is there for us to see. One interesting dynamic about Rembrandt is that is appears that he is observing you in his self portraits and not you observing him.
Read more about Rembrandt below and you will also be given three drawing lessons that teach us more about this great Dutch Master.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van RijnDutch: 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman.
An innovative and prolific master in oil paintings, prints, and etching, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art and the most important in Dutch art history. Unlike most Dutch masters of the 17th century, Rembrandt's works depict a wide range of style and subject matter, from portraits and self-portraits to landscapes, genre scenes, allegorical and historical scenes, and biblical and mythological themes as well as animal studies. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age, when Dutch art (especially Dutch painting. Like many artists of the Dutch Golden Age, such as Jan Vermeer, Rembrandt was an avid art collector and dealer.
Rembrandt never went abroad, but was considerably influenced by the work of the Italian masters and Netherlandish artists who had studied in Italy, like Pieter Lastman, the Utrecht Caravaggists, Flemish Baroque, and Peter Paul Rubens. After he achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, and for twenty years he taught many important Dutch painters.
Rembrandt's portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible are regarded as his greatest creative triumphs. His self-portraits form an intimate autobiography. Rembrandt's foremost contribution in the history of printmaking was his transformation of the etching process from a relatively new reproductive technique into an art form. His reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime. Few of his paintings left the Dutch Republic while he lived, but his prints were circulated throughout Europe, and his wider reputation was initially based on them alone.
