Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), The Dutch Golden Age: Prints by Rembrandt and his Contemporaries
November 8, 2020 – January 24, 2021
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During the Dutch Golden Age the arts flourished-many artists who are now household names, including Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), worked during this period, when a growing middle-class became more able to afford material goods, including art. After the Protestant Reformation (1517) secular subjects became more common in Protestant areas, and landscapes, portraits, and scenes of daily life became popular as a new class of collectors brought artworks into their homes. Prints are part of this story-allowing for popular images to be reproduced in quantity and for a wide audience.
Rembrandt (Dutch, 1606 – 1669), Dr. Faustus, 1652, drypoint, etching, and engraving, Gift, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Goodman, Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.
This exhibition of more than 60 works illuminates this exciting period and tells the story of prints in Holland during the 1600s, considered one of the most innovative periods in the history of printmaking. Rembrandt, one of the greatest artists to have worked with etching, is known for his experimental approach, exploiting the ability to alter plates and reproduce images. Seven prints by Rembrandt are featured, along with a works by his precursors, peers, and followers, including Hendrick Goltzius, Jan Lievens, Adriaen van Ostade, Nicolaes Berchem, Carel Dujardin, Adriaen van de Velde, and Anthonie Waterloo. The variety of images-from landscapes, to peasant scenes, to complex parables-rewards close looking and provides a fascinating look at the technique of printmaking and the Golden Age of Holland.
This exhibition is organized by the Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.
In addition to prints by Rembrandt, other significant artists are featured, including Hendrick Goltzius, Cornelis Bega, Jan Lievens, Adriaen van Ostade, Nicolaes Berchem, Carel Dujardin, Herman van Swanevelt, Jan van de Velde, Adriaen van de Velde, and Anthonie Waterloo. This diverse range of etchings and engravings presents a fascinating variety of subjects including biblical scenes, myths and allegories, depictions of everyday life, figure studies, and landscapes.
Rembrandt and the Golden Age
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), one of the most influential and innovative western European artists of all time, worked in Holland during the 1600s, a period that came to be known as the Golden Age—when the arts flourished and a newly established middle-class had the means to begin acquiring art for their homes. The Dutch Golden Age (ca. 1581–1672) witnessed the rise of an increasingly prosperous society, overseas colonial expansion, and the formation of an extensive trading empire. During this era, creative expression and scientific discovery blossomed, making the Dutch Republic one of Europe’s major artistic and intellectual centers.
The Golden Age of Dutch art coincided with the Baroque period in art history. Baroque art is known for its dynamic compositions and its ability to stir emotion. Catholic artists of the period, in response to the Protestant Reformation, created ambitious artworks meant to keep believers in thrall of the Church. Protestant artists (like Rembrandt) also created theatrical and emotional works, but typically more personal in nature and scale, since Protestants believed that images might interfere with a direct relationship to God. In the largely Protestant Netherlands, the lack of church patronage required that artists market their work to the public, and portraiture, landscape, still life, and genre (daily life) subjects rose in popularity as artists met the demands of the market for artwork scaled to domestic spaces representing subjects of interest to ordinary people.
Rembrandt is renowned for his use of dramatic chiaroscuro (contrast between light and dark) a technique often employed for dramatic impact during the Baroque period. Associated with the work of earlier Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio (1571–1610) and his followers, Rembrandt mastered the use of chiaroscuro in paintings and prints that were disseminated throughout Europe. In his etchings, he achieved the effect through hatching and masterfully inking the copper printing plates.
Rembrandt was born in Leiden and apprenticed under Jacob van Swanenburg (1571–1638) and Pieter Lastman (1583–1633). In contrast to some of his contemporaries, Rembrandt never traveled to Italy or other parts of Europe to study antiquities and Renaissance masterworks. Instead, he chose to remain in the Netherlands for his entire career and permanently relocated to Amsterdam in 1631 where he firmly established his reputation. Beginning in the 1640s, Rembrandt’s life was beset by financial setbacks and heartbreaking family losses, as a result, his late works were increasingly melancholic and introspective. Rembrandt’s tendency towards self-examination and empathy resulted in a body of work of remarkable depth and variety that exerted a major impact on the work of many artists in subsequent centuries.
Printmaking in the Golden Age
Rembrandt was one of many artists of the time who explored the possibilities of printmaking as a tool to both experiment with imagery and reproduce images in quantity. Over the course of his career, he produced about three hundred etchings. These works, many of which were executed as alternate versions of the same subject in various “states,” were avidly collected throughout Europe and helped bolster his international reputation in subsequent centuries.
Etching begins with a metal plate (in Rembrandt’s time typically copper) which is coated with an acid resistant waxy material called the ground. The artist draws on the ground with an etching needle, exposing the metal plate. After an acid bath, those exposed areas become recessed, and will hold the ink that creates the image. To make a print, an inked plate is run through the etching press under great pressure and the incised areas transfer the ink onto dampened paper.
Etching has been praised for its direct connection to the hand of the artist and its flexibility in allowing the artist to experiment—reworking and altering the plate to create variations of the same image. The artist can manipulate the plate in many ways. Scratching directly into the metal is a process known as “drypoint.” Hatching can create areas of darkness and depth, stopping out areas of the plate with ground can allow the acid to bite differently in different areas. Rembrandt enjoyed the experimental nature of etching and was a master at exploiting its many variables to create images that have beguiled viewers for centuries.
In addition to prints by Rembrandt, this exhibition showcases the work of other significant masters of the print medium, and sections of the exhibition explore artists who worked before Rembrandt, paving the way for his interest in the medium, and artists who worked after—heavily influenced by Rembrandt’s accomplishments.
Exhibition Highlights
The seven prints by Rembrandt in the exhibition show the breadth of his interest and feature well-known sheets like The Golf Player, an unfinished landscape, and Old Man Seen from Behind, which capture his interest in observing and recording the world around him,. Biblical subjects include Christ Chasing the Moneychangers from the Temple, a harrowing Stoning of St. Stephen, and a beautiful rendition of The Annunciation to the Shepherds set in a lush landscape. Perhaps the most mysterious print in the exhibition is an image from 1652 known as Dr, Faust or Scholar in his Study. It has been speculated that this plate was Rembrandt's portrait of Dr. Faustus, the titular character in Christopher Marlowe’s play who traded his soul to the devil in exchange for magical powers and secret knowledge. Art historians have attempted unsuccessfully to identify the particular scene in the play, hence the possibility that the etching depicts an unidentified scholar at work. Rembrandt portrays him transfixed by a cryptic formula that blazes through his window like the sun, featuring amid indecipherable notations, the inscription INRI, which appeared above Jesus during the crucifixion (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews). It is possible that this print represents an allegory of faith, or is an attempt to connect the work of the scholar to divine inspiration.
Rembrandt’s colleague and possible studio mate Jan Lievens (1607–1674)—the artists shared models, and sometimes modeled for each other—is represented by two prints. Lievens’ St. Jerome in Penitence dramatically displays the use of chiaroscuro to emphasize the saint’s life of devotion and deprivation through his thin, worn body, while also indicating his spirituality through his glowing halo. St. Jerome is known for translating the Bible into Latin, and for the years he spent living in the desert, trying to divest himself of worldly desires.
Other artists of the time specialized in scenes of everyday life, or in the case of Cornelis de Visscher’s (1629–1658) etching made after a painting by Pieter van Laer (1599–c.1642), “not-so-everyday life.” The Pistol Shot is a dramatic nocturnal scene depicting a group of thieves intercepting a coach on a section of dark and sheltered roadway. The setting, a rocky enclosed area that would give pause to any night-time traveler, allows for dramatic use of the chiaroscuro technique—highlighting the white horses, the glint of a dropped sword, and the glow of moonlight.
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