Word: rembrandt
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...engraving. With what light steps did I attend the next lectures in my favorite elective! But "put not your trust in professors." What is this that I hear? Do my ears deceive me? Alas, no! The note-book has it in black and white. "A few etchings of Rembrandt are good, but none of the modern etchings; and the magazine edited by Mr. Hamerton (alas! my own cherished Portfolio) is the refuge of ignorance and bungling...
Durer gives us a vigorous old man engaged in earnest study. The technical means used are those by which he could best express what he saw. Rembrandt, on the other hand, having the same thing to express, forces us to peer through his artful darkness and lose our time in making conjectures as to where the staircase leads; in fact, if we can believe his great admirer, M. Charles Blanc, he draws upon our imagination for a lion. This seems too absurd to be true, but, nevertheless, in his criticism of this picture, M. Blanc speaks of "the lion which...
Having found some fault with Rembrandt, no fuller reparation can be made than by turning our attention to the world-renowned Hundred Guilder piece. Here Rembrandt makes himself immortal, and uses his chiaro-oscuro in a most effective manner. Professor Lubke has called Rembrandt, as compared with Vandyck or Rubens, a demagogue. This may be admitted, unless the bad sense of demagogue is too much insisted upon. It was most natural for Rembrandt, who lived and died in Holland, to depict what he had before him, and that was a government by the people. In this truly superb impression...
...contrast to all this woe, we have, at the extreme right, a group of well to-do Pharisees, one of whom has a particularly malicious and mocking smile. On the right next Christ we see Socrates. It is possible that Rembrandt, through his "cult of the ugly," might have developed the head of Socrates from his inner consciousness, but it is sure that he did not, since he owned a bust of Socrates, which is mentioned in the inventory of his art treasures which were sold for his debts...
...more beautiful than those who surround him; for though issued from the people, he is still of David's race; his features are at once real and noble." The truth is, that you are surprised, but not for the reasons M. Blanc gives, - just the reverse. Rembrandt's Christ has features that may be called real, but no one ought to call them noble. In spite of this defect, the Hundred Guilder piece is a truly powerful composition, and no one who studies it with attention can escape its influence. The deep velvety black which sets forth the central group...