Artist Adversity

It was on this date, 410 years ago or on July 15, 1606 that a man was born who would become recognized by his first name. Rembrandt van Rijn, the highly regarded Dutch painter was born in Leiden. The son of a miller and his wife, Rembrandt started painting at a young age and by age 22 was sufficiently skilled and accomplished to take on his own students while still in Leiden. But, like most routes in our existence on earth, Rembrandt’s life had its ups and its downs.

Rembrandt, self -portrait

Rembrandt was taught by various teachers, but one teacher in his early years would stand out. That teacher was Pieter Lastman. Lastman would go on to interest Rembrandt in biblical, mythological, and historical themes. However, his early years were also influenced to a great deal by the Italian painter Caravaggio (b 1571, d 1610) particularly in the use of shadow and light. For the most part of his career, Rembrandt was a portraitist. And, not just of others, as over the course of his life he would paint nearly 100 self-portraits. In 1631, he left the town in which he was born and raised and move to Amsterdam. It is here that he would achieve his greatest fame and success as a portrait painter. However, also in the 1630’s the influence of Lasterman would be shown in his etchings of a varied biblical subjects. Perhaps one of the best known, at least according to one source, is his Annunciation to the Shepherds (1634). By this time he himself had become a prominent teacher, with a large number of students and a good number of assistants. It would not be an understatement to say that he was enjoying a great deal of success.

Annunciation to the Shepherds

However, the pendulum of success would swing the other way, as a series of events would form a near perfect storm that affected him personally. First, portraitures started to go out of style and the demand for his work in painting high-class portraits was reduced. Popular tastes in art change. Certainly one only needs to look at the work of Rembrandt and compare it to the modern art of today to know the changing nature of art. Popular tastes in painting, according to a source reviewed, also changed and his use of darkness, shadow and light was being replaced by detail and refinement. Rembrandt, it has been reported at the time, was criticized for his work as being “course and indecorous.” Second, even as his income declined due to changing public tastes, Rembrandt kept up the lavish and extravagant lifestyle which he had developed in the years of his growing success. This lifestyle, combined with his own art collecting, would lead him to bankruptcy in 1656. Finally, were events which combined to darken his existence: the 1642 death of his wife, the later death of his mistress and the death in 1668 of his only son.

Night Watch

However, many believe that the 1640’s, in spite of, or in my view because of, the personal adversity he faced, he would paint some of the most highly regarded masterpieces of his life. Think of what we call The Night Watch (formally known as The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq) produced in 1642, or his etching Christ Healing the Sick (1643-1649). The latter is an interesting choice of etching started the year after his wife’s death, and may be a telling manner of his expression of grief. The 1650’s to 1660’s saw him produce works that many today claim are his best. Art is in the eye of the beholder, and while the change in views of art led to his decline in business in the 1640’s to 1650’s, that does not mean that some present time, or future time eyes would not enjoy what he produced. That is part of the greatness of the irony of art, there may be little appreciation in the artist’s own life time, but more so after the artist’s death. Yet, at this time he produced some of his greatest works at this low time of his life. As a painter, he continued even as death and financial destruction was about him. The greatest part of his success may not be that he produced great works of art during this time, but that he was able to overcome adversity to do so. The dark nights he faced did not affect his output, and perhaps the time frame even emboldened him.

Chirst Healing the Sick

The character of a person is not just in how they handle success, but also in who they handle the low points in their life. Art, to Rembrandt, was not just the way he made his living, but was his version of comfort food. It was his diversion of the troubled times that he experienced for the last almost three decades of his life, until his death in 1669. When facing the trials of his life he produced some of his highest recognized and well-regarded works. I like to see think that his genius came through in the dark times of his life, and well that may not have been the case, whatever it was, we today live with the art he produced.  Was he the first to wear the now ever popular artist beanie?

Images from Google