Rembrandt
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Josef Israels >> Rembrandt
I was not really lacking in artistic instinct any more than my
fellow-students, but I had not yet gained the experience and practice,
which are indispensable to the true understanding of the quaint but
highly artistic qualities of the old Dutch masters. I maintain that
however intelligent a man may be, it is impossible to appreciate old
Dutch art to the full, or even to enjoy it, unless one has become
thoroughly familiar with it, and has tried to identify oneself with it.
In order to be able to sound the real character and depth of
manifestations of art, the artistic sensibility has to be trained and
developed.
It was long before I could summon up sufficient courage to enter this
Holy of Holies armed with my colours and brushes. Indeed I only started
on this venture after a long spell of hard work, out-of-doors as well as
in the studio, and after having made many studies from the nude, and
many more still-life studies; then a light broke in upon my darkness.
I began to understand at last that the true aim of art does not consist
in the smooth and delicate plastering of the colours. I realised that my
chief study was to be the exact value of light and shade, the relief of
the objects, and the attitude, movements, and gestures of the figures.
Having learned to look upon art from this point of view, I entered the
old "Trippenhuis" with pleasure. Little by little the beauty and truth
of these admirable old masters dawned upon me. I perceived that their
simple subjects grew rich and full of meaning through the manner in
which they were treated. The artists were geniuses, and the world around
them either ignored the fact, or did not see it until too late.
Knowing little of art, I chose for my first copy a small canvas, a
"Hermit" by Gerard Dou, not understanding that, though small, it might
contain qualities which would prove too difficult for me to imitate. I
had to work it over and over again, for I could not get any shape in the
thick, sticky paint. Then I tried a head by Van der Helst, and succeeded
a little better.
[Illustration: PLATE VI.--PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN
This portrait may be seen to-day in the Pitti Palace at Florence. It is
said to be one of Rembrandt's portraits of himself, painted about
1635.]
At last I stopped before one of the heads in the "Syndics of the Cloth
Merchants' Guild." The man in the left-hand corner, with the soft grey
hair under the steeple-hat, had arrested my fancy. I felt that there was
something in the portrait's beauty I could grasp and reproduce, though I
saw at once that the technical treatment was entirely different from
what I had attempted hitherto. However, the desire to reproduce this
breadth of execution tempted me so much that I resolved to try my hand
at it. I forget now what the copy looked like; I only remember that for
years it hung on my studio wall.
So I tried to grasp the colour scheme, and the technique of the
different artists, until the beauties of the so-called "Night Patrol"
and the "Syndics" took such hold of me that nothing attracted me but
what had come from the hand of the great master, the unique Rembrandt.
In his work I found something which all the others lacked. Freedom and
exuberance were his chief attractions, two qualities utterly barred and
forbidden in the drawing class and in my teacher's studio.
Although Frans Hals impressed me more than any other painter with the
power with which he wielded the brush, even he was put in the shade by
Rembrandt's unsurpassable colour effects.
When I had looked at Rembrandt's pictures to my heart's content, I used
to go down to the ground floor in the "Trippenhuis" to the print
cabinet. Here I found his etchings beautifully arranged. It was a
pleasant room overlooking a garden, and in the centre stood a long table
covered with a green cloth, on which one could put down the portfolio
and look at the gems they contained at leisure.
I often sat there for hours, buried in the contemplation of these two
hundred and forty masterpieces. The conservator never ceased urging me
to be careful when he saw me mix them up too much in my efforts to
compare them. How astonished I was to find in the painter who, with
mighty hand, had modelled in paint the glorious "Night Patrol," an
accomplished engraver, not only gifted with the power and freedom of a
great painter, but thoroughly versed in all the mysteries of the use of
the etching needle on the hard, smooth copper.
Still it was not the extraordinary skill which attracted me most in
these etchings. It was rather the singular inventive power shown in the
different scenes, the peculiar contrast between light and shade, and the
almost childlike manner in which the figures had been treated. The
artist's soul not only spoke through the choice of subject, but it
found an expression in every single detail, conveyed by the delicate
handling of the needle.
Many Biblical subjects are represented in the Amsterdam collection; they
are full of artistic imagination and sentiment in their composition in
spite of their seeming incongruity. The conception is so highly
original, and at the same time betrays such a depth of understanding,
that other prints, however beautifully done, look academic and stilted
beside them.
Among those etchings were excellent portraits, wonderfully lifelike
heads of the painter's friends and of himself; but when one has looked
at the little picture of his mother, he is compelled to shut the
portfolio for a moment, because the unbidden tears rise to the eyes.
It is impossible to find anything more exquisite than this engraving.
Motherly kindness, sweetness, and thoughtfulness are expressed in every
curve, in the slightest touch of the needle. Each line has a meaning;
not a single touch could have been left out without injury to the whole.
Hokusai, the Japanese artist, said that he hoped to live to be very old
that he might have time to learn to draw in such a way that every stroke
of his pencil would be the expression of some living thing. That is
exactly what Rembrandt has attained here, and, in this portrait, he
realised at the age of twenty-four the ideal of the old Japanese; it is
one of his earliest etchings.
I re-open the portfolio to have a look at the pictures of the wonderful
old Jewish beggars. They were types that were to be found by the score
in the Amsterdam of those days, and Rembrandt delighted to draw them.
One is almost inclined to say that they cannot be beggars, because the
master's hand has endowed them with the warmth and splendour with which
his artistic temperament clothed everything he looked at.
When I had looked enough at the etchings, I used to go home through the
town, and it seemed to me as if I were meeting the very people I had
just seen in the engravings. As I went through the "Hoog Straat" and
"St. Anthony's Breestraat" to the "Joden Breestraat," where I lived a
few doors from the famous house where Rembrandt dwelt and worked so
long, I saw the picturesque crowd passing to and fro; I saw the vivid
Hebrew physiognomies, with their iron-grey beards; the red-headed women;
the barrows full of fish or fruit, or all kinds of rubbish; the houses,
the people, the sky. It was all Rembrandt--all Rembrandtesque. A great
deal has been changed in those streets since the time of which I have
been writing, yet, even now, whenever I pass through them I seem to see
the colours, and the kind of people Rembrandt shows us in his works.
In the meantime I had found a third manifestation of Rembrandt's talent,
viz., his drawings. To a young painter, who himself was still groping in
the dark for means of expressing his feelings, these drawings were
exceedingly puzzling, but at the same time full of stimulus.
Less palpably living than his etchings, it was some time before I could
properly appreciate them, but when I understood what I firmly believe
still, namely, that the master did not draw with a view to exhibiting
them or only for the pleasure of making graceful outlines I felt their
true meaning. They were simply the embodiments of his deeper feelings;
emanations from the abundance of his fertile imagination. They have been
thrown on the paper with an unthinking, careless hand; the same hand
that created masterpieces, prompted by the slightest impulse, the least
sensation. When I looked at them superficially they seemed disfigured by
all sorts of smudges and thick black lines, which cross and recross in a
seemingly wild and aimless sort of way; but when looked into carefully,
they all have a meaning of their own, and have been put there with a
just and deep felt appreciation of light and shade. The greater
compositions crowded with figures, the buildings, the landscapes--all
are impregnated with the same deep artistic feeling.
[Illustration: PLATE VII.--PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY
This famous portrait of an old lady unknown is in our National Gallery.
It is on canvas 4 ft. 2+3/4 in. by 3 ft. 2 in.]
One evening one of my friends gave us a short lecture on art and showed
us many drawings by ancient and modern artists, most of them, however,
being by contemporaries who had already become famous. Among them was
one drawing by Rembrandt, and it was remarkable to notice the peculiar
effect it produced in this collection. The scene represented on the old
smudgy piece of paper was so simple in execution, so noble in
composition, done with just a few strokes of the pencil, that all the
other drawings looked like apprentice-work beside it. Here was the
master, towering above all.
Thus I saw Rembrandt, the man who could tell me endless stories, and
could conjure them up before my eyes with either brush, pencil, or
etching needle. Whether heaven or earth; the heroes of old; or only a
corner of old Amsterdam--out of everything he made the most beautiful
drawings. His pictures of lions and elephants are wonderfully naive. His
nude figures of female models are remarkable, because no painter dared
paint them exactly as he saw them in his studio, but Rembrandt,
entranced by the glow and warmth of the flesh tints, never dreamt of
reproducing them otherwise than as he saw them. It was no Venus, or
June, or Diana he wanted. He might, perhaps, even take his neighbour's
washerwoman, make her get up on the model throne, and put her on the
canvas in all the glory of living, throbbing flesh and blood.
And the way in which he put his scrawls and strokes is so wonderful that
one can never look too long at them. All his work is done with a
light-heartedness, a cheerfulness, and firmness which preclude at once
the idea of painful study and exertion.
II
What do I think of the master now, after so many years?
Come with me, reader, let us look together at the strongest expression
of Rembrandt's art, viz., his picture "The Night Patrol."
Our way leads us now to the Ryksmuseum, and we sit down in the newly
built "Rembrandt room," with our backs to the light, so as to obtain a
full view of the picture, and we try to forget all about the struggle it
cost to erect this temple of art.
At first sight, we are struck by the grand movements of light and shade,
which seem to flood the canvas as if with waves of coloured harmonies.
Then, suddenly, two men seem to step out from the group. The one is
dressed in sombre-coloured clothes, whilst the other is resplendent in
white. That is Rembrandt all over, not afraid of putting the light in
bold contrast against the dark. So as to maintain the harmony between
the two he makes the dark man lift his hand as if he were pointing at
something, and in doing so, he casts a softening shadow on his brilliant
companion. Genius finds a way where ordinary mortals are at a loss how
to help themselves. Clearly these men are in earnest conversation with
each other, and it is quite evident that they are the leaders of the
company.
But when everything was put on the canvas that he intended to put there,
the master stood in front of it and shook his head.
To him these two leaders did not stand out sufficiently from the rest.
So he took up his palette again, and again he dipped his broadest
brushes deep in paint and with a few mighty strokes he transformed these
two figures; a little more depth here, some more light there. He tried
every means to give the scene more depth, and a fuller meaning. Then he
saw that it was all right and left it.
The likeness of his patrons was, perhaps, not very exact and most likely
some murmurs were raised at the want of minutely finished detail; but he
did not heed such matters. To him the main point was to make his figures
live and breathe and move; and see how he succeeded! From the plumes of
their hats to the soles of their feet everything is living, tangible.
How full of energy and character are their heads! Their dress, the steel
gorget, the boots of the man in white; everything bears witness to the
wonderful power of the master.
And look at the man in black, with his red bandolier, his gloves, and
his stick. This does not strike one as anything out of the common,
because the composition is so true, so perfectly natural and simple. I
cannot remember having seen a single picture in which the peculiar style
and picturesqueness of those days is so vividly expressed, as in the
figures of these two men calmly walking along on the giant canvas.
Now let us turn to the right and have a look at the perspiring drummer.
His pock-marked face, overshadowed by a frayed hat, is of the true
Falstaff type. The swollen nose, the thick-lipped mouth, every detail is
carried out with the daring of the true artist which characterises all
the master's work. Look at him, drumming away as if he wanted to make it
known that he himself is one of the most magnificent specimens of the
work of the genius whom men call Rembrandt.
On looking at this man I can understand why Gerard de Lairesse exclaimed
in his great book on painting: "In Rembrandt's pictures the paint is
running down the panel like mud!" But it was only his conscientious
narrow-mindedness which made him say it. Genius never fails to get into
conflict with narrow thought.
But now let us turn our attention to the left-hand corner. There we see
that pithy soldier all in red. Rembrandt, with his intuitive knowledge
of chiaroscuro, was not afraid of painting a figure all in red. He knew
that the play of light and shade on the colour would help him out. Here
part of the red is toned down by a beautiful soft tint, which makes the
whole figure blend harmoniously with the greyish-green of the others.
This man in red, too, has been treated in the same masterly manner of
which I spoke above. If one looks at him attentively, it seems as if the
man, who apparently might step out of the canvas at any rate, had been
painted with one powerful sweep of the brush. How firm is the treatment
of the hand loading the gun; how true the shadows on the red hat and
jerkin. There the figure stands, alert, living, full of movement, rich
in colour.
In this marvellous picture we come across something striking at every
turn. How life-like is the halberdier looking over his shoulder; and the
man who is inspecting his gun, just behind the figure in white; observe
the wonderful effect of the laughing boy in the grey hat against the
dark background. Even the pillar which serves as a background to the man
with the helmet adds to the harmony of the whole.
But here we meet with something peculiar! What is that quaint little
girl doing among all those men?
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--HEAD OF A YOUNG MAN. (Unknown)
In the Louvre]
Numbers of critics have racked their brains about the meaning of
different details. But if Rembrandt could have heard them, he would have
answered with a laugh, "Don't you see that I only wanted this child as a
focus for the light, and a contrast with all the downward lines and dark
colours?"
The man with the banner in the background, the dog running away, all
these details help each other to carry out the effect of line and
colour. There is not a square inch in this canvas which does not betray
a rare talent. This is a case in which the assertion, "Cut me a piece
out of a picture and I will tell you if it is by an artist," could
successfully be applied.
Now, I hope my readers won't object to accompanying me a little further,
and stopping with me before the "Syndics." There it hangs, the great
simple canvas, quite different in character from the "Night Patrol."
Everything here is dignified and stately. The whole picture is a
glorious witness to the consummate knowledge the master possessed of
expressing the individual soul in the human face. Here they sit, those
old Dutch fathers, assembled in solemn conclave, debating about their
trade, with the books on the table in front of them; and Rembrandt has
painted these heads so true to life that in the course of years they
have become like old friends; yes, old friends, though they lived
hundreds of years before we were dreamt of.
How long have I known that man on the left, with his hand on the knob of
his arm-chair, and the fine grey hair on his broad wrinkled brow showing
from under the high steeple-hat? The flesh tints in the face, whether
catching the full light, or partly veiled by shadows, display an endless
variety of shades, and the neutral greens and reds, greys and yellows,
are put against each other in such a wonderful manner that an effect
has been attained which strikes us dumb with admiration. The way in
which he is made to stand out from the background is in itself
marvellous, but just look at the man! how full of life and understanding
is the look in those eyes. It is something quite unique, something
Rembrandt himself has never surpassed.
And then there are the other figures; the man who is leaning forward;
the one sitting right in front of the book, his neighbour; even the
fifth merchant on the right, with his servant behind him--one and all
are full of life and light.
The background is such as Rembrandt only, with his understanding of
lines, could have devised. The wall and the panelling shut in the
composition in such a way that one cannot possibly imagine it ever
having been otherwise. And even this skilful touch is made subordinate
to the warm red colour of the tablecloth, which lends the picture an
additional depth.
I don't know whether this picture was very much discussed by Rembrandt's
contemporaries when it was finished. But to us, who have seen so much of
the art of the great Italians, Germans, and Spaniards, these heads are
the highest achievement of the art of painting.
When I was in Madrid, where I was charmed by Velasquez' work, our party
was one day walking through the broad streets of the capital. Passing a
large, picturesque building, our attention was attracted by a gaudy
poster informing us that an exhibition of the works of modern Spanish
artists was being held within. Our curiosity being aroused, we entered,
and found that in this country, where so many famous artists lived and
worked, there are among the modern artists many studious, highly
talented men, who serve their art with true love and devotion. But
suddenly it seemed as if we had been carried by magic from Spain back to
Amsterdam. We had come face to face with a copy of the "Syndics,"
painted by a Spanish artist during a stay in Amsterdam.
Was it national prejudice, or was it conviction? I don't know; but this
copy spoke to us of a spirit of greater simplicity, of a truer
conception of the nature and dignity of mankind than anything we had
admired in the Prado. Yes; this picture even kills its own Dutch
brothers. It makes Van der Helst look superficial, and Franz Hals
unfinished and flat. So much thoroughness and depth combined with such
freedom and grace of movement is not to be found anywhere else.
These people have lived on the canvas for centuries, and they will
outlive us all. And the man who achieved this masterpiece was at the
time of its production a poor, struggling burgher living in an obscure
corner of the town where his tercentenary festival was lately
celebrated.
III
But this is not the place for the sad reflections which are awakened in
our minds on examining the records of him whose name the world now
glorifies and raises to the skies. Better to honour the great master
who, for so many centuries, has held the world in awed admiration. There
is no need to-day to drag Rembrandt forth from the obscurity of the past
to save him from oblivion; we were not obliged to cleanse his image from
the dust of ages before showing to the world this unequalled genius to
whom Holland proudly points as one of her own sons.
On the contrary, never was Rembrandt's art valued so highly as it is
now. Archives and documents are searched for details about his life and
works. We want to know all about his life, and are anxious to share his
inmost feelings in prosperity and adversity. The houses where he lived
are marked down and bought by art-lovers. At the present time Rembrandt
is in the zenith of his glory. Gold loses its value where his pictures
are concerned. Fortunes are spent to secure the most insignificant of
his works; people travel across continents to see them; and criticism,
which for long years did little more than snarl at Rembrandt, has for
nearly fifty years been dumb.
It is remarkable that none of the great painters have, in the course of
years, been subjected to so much criticism as Rembrandt. And
notwithstanding all the things which have been said about the
improbability of the scene, and the exaggeration of the dark background,
the "Night Patrol" is now, as it ever was and ever will be, the "World's
wonder," as our English neighbours say.
During his lifetime there were people who condemned Rembrandt because he
refused to follow in the footsteps of the old Italian painters, because
he persisted in painting nature as he saw it.
To us such a reproach seems strange, yet it is quite true. Even during
the last years of Rembrandt's life a growing dissatisfaction with the
existing ideas on art and literature had taken possession of the Dutch
mind. People developed a morbid taste for everything classical; and when
I read in the prose works and poems of these days the Latinised names
and the constant allusions to Greek gods and goddesses and mythological
personages, so strangely out of place under our northern sky, I am
filled with disgust.
It was fortunate, indeed, that Rembrandt always felt strong in his own
conviction and only followed his own views. For many years after his
death, even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century, a number of
art critics raised objections against the dangerous theories of which
his pictures were the expression. Again and again they attacked his
technical treatment; none of them ever grasped its deeper, fuller
meaning.
Happily those days are far behind us. A great number of books and
pamphlets have been published on Rembrandt during the last fifty years,
and they are almost unanimous in their praise and admiration of the
great master. The more liberal feelings of the modern world have
achieved some victories in the realms of art as well as elsewhere. We
moderns feel that the apparent shortcomings and exaggerations are
nothing but the inevitable peculiarities attendant upon genius. And we
even go so far that we would not have him be without a single one of
them, for fear of losing the slightest trait in the character of the
great man whose every movement roused our intellectual faculties.
So Rembrandt has been raised in our days to the pinnacle of fame which
is his by right; the festival of his tercentenary was acknowledged by
the whole civilised world as the natural utterance of joy and pride of
our small country in being able to count among its children the great
Rembrandt.
I finish,--"with the pen, but not with the heart!" For if I should go on
until the inclination to add more to what I have written here should
fail me, my readers would have tired of me long before I had tired of my
subject. I am thinking of that rare gem, the portrait of Jan Six--of the
Louvre, of Cassel, of Brunswick, of what not!
May these pages convey to the reader the fact that I have always looked
upon Rembrandt as the true type of an artist, free, untrammelled by
traditions, genial in all he did; in short, a figure in whom all the
great qualities of the old Republic of the United Provinces were
concentrated and reflected.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The "Trippenhuis" was used as a picture gallery before the
Ryksmuseum was built. It was an old patrician family mansion belonging
to the Trip family. Several members of this family filled important
posts in the government of the old Republic of the United Provinces, and
some were burgomasters of Amsterdam.]
[Footnote 2: "Arti et Amicitiae" is a society of modern Dutch painters.
Occasionally the members organise exhibitions of the work of
contemporary countrymen or of foreign artists, and every year there is
an exhibition of their own works. These shows are held in the society's
own building in Amsterdam at the corner of the "Rokin" and "Spui."]