Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn (born July 15, 1606, Leiden, Netherlands - died October 4, 1669, Amsterdam), a Dutch artist and engraver of the Baroque era, one of the greatest masters in the history of art, with the exceptional ability to represent people in their different moods and dramatic skins. At the beginning of his career, the artist preferred portraits. Although he continued to paint and engrave them throughout his career, over time he turned to this genre less and less.
Biography
He was the ninth child of Harmen Gerritson van Rijn and Neltgen Willemsdochter van Zeitbrook. His family was quite wealthy. Father was a miller, and mother was a baker's daughter. As a child, he attended a Latin school and was enrolled in Leiden University, although, according to a contemporary, he was prone to painting. He soon became a student of Jacob van Swanenburg, with whom he spent three years. After a short but important training for six months with renowned artist Peter Lastman in Amsterdam, he opened a studio in Leiden, which he shared with his friend and colleague Jan Leavens. In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students.
In 1629, thanks to the help of Konstantin Huygens, the artist received important orders at the court of The Hague. Prince Frederick Hendrick bought his paintings until 1646.
At the end of 1631, Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, and in 1634 he married Saskia van Uylenburg. In the same year he became governor of Amsterdam and a member of the local guild of artists. He had five students. Of all the children, Rembrandt survived only the fourth child, the son of Titus, born in 1641. A year later, his wife died.
Rembrandt lived beyond his means, buying works of art, prints and rarities. As a result, in order to avoid bankruptcy in 1656, he was forced to sell most of his paintings and a collection of antiquities.
Rembrandt survived his son, who died in 1668, leaving his little daughter. The artist himself died a year later, on October 4, 1669, in Amsterdam, and was buried in an anonymous grave at Westerkerk.
Engraving artist
For many, this fact will seem surprising, but it was precisely the engravings and etchings of Rembrandt, and not his paintings, that brought him fame during his lifetime. For Europeans of that era, printing, etching, or woodcut were akin to modern photographs. In addition to the printed word itself, they were the main means of mass communication of the 17th century. The printers and the artists themselves could produce a large number of prints. The works performed by Rembrandt in the technique of etching took the form of simple leaflets, others became illustrations in books. Some reproduced paintings from private collections, inaccessible to the public.
Thus, etching Rembrandt turned into a surprisingly flexible instrument of his art. The subject of his work was diverse: biblical subjects, landscapes, portraits - all this he found suitable for etching. Wielding tools as well as technology, Rembrandt sometimes even used a V-shaped engraver in his etchings, combining it with a fine etching needle and a thicker needle with a dry tip for more intense graphic effects. Rembrandt's great gift as an etcher was to maintain a sense of spontaneity with careful attention to detail.
Engraving technique
In the art of etching, Rembrandt showed great ingenuity.
Before him, they used the technique more often when the artist worked directly on a metal plate, usually a copper one. To create the image, he painstakingly cut the lines on its surface with a thin, diagonally pointed steel cutter. Excess metal remaining near the furrow was carefully cleaned. Then the plate was covered with paint and prints were made from it. The visual effect of such an engraving is neat, regular lines.
The specifics of Rembrandt’s technology
When using another method, the plate was covered with a protective layer of resin. Then the artist scratched his drawing with a needle on the resin and immersed the plate in a bath of acid, which corroded the metal wherever the protective layer was removed. The action of the acid led to the appearance of irregular, vibrating lines. However, Rembrandt regarded this not as a flaw, but as a challenge.
The copper plate is easy to change and correct. Lines can be removed by grinding or polishing, or added as needed. When etched, the plate is simply covered with a fresh layer of resin and new scratches are made on it. It sometimes took the artist several years to finish the work so that it completely satisfied him. From time to time he sold engravings made at different stages of work. Often there are four or five different states of the same etching. Sometimes the changes are minor, and sometimes they are radical.
The portraits and landscapes, domestic and religious scenes performed by Rembrandt in the technique of etching, a characteristic feature is the courage and novelty of artistic techniques.
Description of work
The earliest engravings of Rembrandt can be dated around 1626, when he was 20 years old. Very few surviving images, such as Rest on the Road to Egypt, demonstrate his inexperience. He did not think about making his print look like an engraving, but he used a free, scribbling blow. The protective layer on his plates was soft, which allowed him to move the needle with the fluidity of a chalk or pen on paper.
The sense of humanity characteristic of Rembrandt is very evident in the group of small etchings of the poor and outcasts made in the late 1620s. They feel the influence both on the subject and on the manner in which the poses of the great contemporary Rembrandt by the French engraver Jacques Callot are presented.
Two or three years after his first work, Rembrandt became a master of engraving. The portrait of his mother, dated 1628, is an extremely insightful study of character, performed by a 22-year-old artist, conveyed by a network of very thin lines that capture the play of light, shadow and air, with a skill far exceeding that of Callot or any Dutch etching. Rembrandt constantly honed his technique, as can be clearly seen in a later portrait of his mother, made in 1631. However, as in all the artist’s works in his Leiden years, delicacy is manifested along with courage, even rudeness.
Engravings
Throughout his career, the artist has made dozens, even hundreds of prints, of many of his 290 plates (their number is approximate). The largest size of Rembrandt etchings is 53 by 45 cm, many of them have the size of postcards or even smaller.
At least 79 original Rembrandt plates are still preserved. All of them are made of thin metal, the thickest of which is only one twenty-fifth of an inch. Many of them are worn or damaged by recycling at a later time.
Perhaps the most famous etchings of Rembrandt are “Faust”, “Three Crosses”, “Pancake Girl”, “Mill”, “Three Trees”, “Christ Healing the Sick” (or “A sheet of a hundred guilders”).