The Better To See You With

One can use eyeglasses, not only to see with, but as a grid to assist in painting a face.  This painting is based upon the Rembrandt self-portrait in the National Gallery in London.  I've read that Rembrandt wasn't really so introspective as we might think despite all his self-portraits.  That's our modern sensibility being read back into the paintings.  Most of the self-portraits were more like a calling card, saying: "See this. I can paint portraits too.  Hire me."  8x10 inches, oil on panel.

Everyman

Little did I realize as I wandered through the Old Church in Delft that I would find the burial site of Johannes Vermeer.   His compatriot Rembrandt was also buried in a church in Amsterdam, but his final resting place is unknown.  The Wikipedia entry states that Rembrandt "was buried as a poor man in an unknown grave in the Westerkerk.  It was in a numbered 'kerkgraf' (grave owned by the church) somewhere under a tombstone in the church.  After twenty years, his remains were taken away and destroyed, as was customary with the remains of poor people at the time."

So, the extraordinary painter of humanity became, in a sense, everyman.

These two are 9x12.

I have been looking at books on Rembrandt's drawings.  His drawings are like the words of Jesus.  At one time at least 1400 drawings were accepted as Rembrandts, but over the years,  many have been thrown out so that there may be now 800 drawings (and shrinking) considered original Rembrandts.   There must be many, many lost and destroyed drawings by Rembrandt.  In his bankruptcy sale, there is listed a folder titled "best drawings".   Imagine what that contained.

Washington and Dean and Rembrandt

The painting and drawing are both 9x12.

I just read a book titled Rembrandt's Nose: Of Flesh & Spirit in the Master's Portraits by Michael Taylor. At one point he writes, "The cadaver and the sleeping girl.  They are both objects of lust, after all--the lust for knowledge and the lust for knowledge in the biblical sense.  The lust to understand and the lust to possess--or, in both cases, simply the lust to see, to draw, to paint.  Like Picasso in his countless variations on the theme of the old satyr and the beautiful young woman, Rembrandt has given us a mythological equivalent of the relationship between the artist and the model or, to put it in more general terms, between the artist and the world."

I suppose the lesson here is that there are no pure motives, especially for the artist, even the great artist.   But life is messy, and the artist thrives in the midst of the mess.  No spirit without flesh, and no flesh without spirit.

Graphic Equivalents

There are a couple paintings in the oven, which I am taking time with, but every day I walk, and I draw. Over the weekend, I reduced my pencil to a nub, by drawing, and sharpening, and drawing, in the field. I have a pencil extender which is quite useful.

In his book Landscape into Art, Kenneth Clark writes, "...Rembrandt...was one of the most sensitive and accurate observers of fact who has ever lived, and one who, as time went on, could immediately find a graphic equivalent for everything he saw. In his landscape drawings of the 1650s, every dot and scribble contributes to an effect of space and light..." Graphic equivalents. Dot and scribble. I like that.

Rembrandt Landscape Drawings

Last year when I was doing landscape drawings in pen and ink, I discovered the book Landscapes of Rembrandt: His Favorite Walks by Boudewijn Bakker. It's too expensive to buy, so I used interlibrary loans to borrow it for a couple weeks. The author and his colleagues traced where Rembrandt walked around Amsterdam on drawing expeditions and even where he sat down and drew. In some cases, a pupil's drawing exists, done alongside from a slightly different perspective, to compare with Rembrandt's drawing. What's interesting is that Rembrandt preferred the rundown cottages and romantic views, deliberately leaving out "contemporary" structures. Another writer, Gary Schwartz, I think, wrote that the weather was always fair when Rembrandt ventured out. His drawings seldom have any clouds. I suspect that he left them out.