$Unique_ID{bob00085} $Pretitle{} $Title{Rembrandt Chapter VII} $Subtitle{} $Author{Sharp, Elizabeth A.} $Affiliation{} $Subject{rembrandt portrait rembrandt's face fine painted landscape work side year see pictures see figures } $Date{} $Log{See Woman Bathing*0008501.scf } Title: Rembrandt Author: Sharp, Elizabeth A. Chapter VII Chapter VII - Landscapes - Hendrickje Stoffels Landscapes - Etched and painted - Method of expression - Hercules Seghers - Landscapes at Budapest and Crakow - Glasgow - Problems of artistic expression - Important portraits - Religious compositions - Mature work - "The Supper at Emmaus" - Head of Christ - Peace rejoicings in 1648 - "The Pacification of Holland" - Prices of pictures - Titus - His nurse - Her portrait - Transactions between master and servant - Hendrickje - Her portraits - Rembrandt's friends - His home - Portraits - "Burgomeister Six." Landscape was regarded by Rembrandt at the beginning of his career as valuable material for backgrounds in his pictures; for style in its use he modelled himself on the Italian conventions in accordance with the taste of the day; though the details in several of his compositions show careful observation of the growth of plants. He used pencil or wash to note down impressions and details, and after 1633 in etchings such as "The Angels Appearing to the Shepherds" landscape becomes of more importance in the composition. His first-known etched landscape is "A Large Tree and House," a "View of Amsterdam," both made in 1640, and in 1641 he produced etchings of a "A Dutch Barn" and "A Mill with Sails." During the ensuing sixteen years he etched several superb landscapes, broadly and boldly handled, yet full of fine perception and delicate observation, with effects heightened or wholly produced by dry-point with extraordinary mastery of material. The most widely popular are the sombre storm-study, "The Three Trees," "The Canal," and "The Vista," a beautiful dry-point of fine woodland. After Saskia's death the widower seems to have made more frequent excursions into the country. He etched views of Amsterdam, Omval, of "Six's Bridge" near Hillegom, of Randorp, "The Village with the Square Tower," and "The Goldweigher's Field" between Muiden and Amsterdam. Many drawings made about this time prove that he visited friends in their country houses, and also sketched views of Dordrecht and the Rotterdam Market. He sketched in chalk, pen and ink, with pen, bistre, and wash, and selected such subjects as a "Clump of Swaying Trees," or the fine "Farm Buildings near a Brook" that anticipates Constable in breadth of handling. The earliest known of Rembrandt's painted landscapes bears the date 1646, "The Frozen Canal," now at Cassel, painted in grey-greens and browns. Richer harmonies and broader handling are seen in the landscapes in the Wallace Collection and the National Gallery, in that entitled "The Holy Family Resting in Egypt" and the magnificent "Landscape with Ruins on a Hill" at Cassel. The artist's development in landscape painting was as sequent as in his portraits and subject compositions. Fine exquisite statement of facts gives place to generalisation, crude realism to intelligent synthesis; colour changes from clarity and a monotony of greys and greens to richer tones and deeper harmonies; leafage and contours are expressed in masses in place of elaborate detail. Prosaic faithfulness develops into a courageous symbolic treatment of collective facts, and expresses a higher form of truth. In proportion as his feeling became more impassioned and his mastery of materials perfect, so did his touch broaden, the impasto became thicker, the handling more impetuous and generous. By a hitherto unattempted use of chiaroscuro, of transfiguring veils of light and mysterious shadow, he attempted to interpret Nature's deepest moods. Thus it is his landscapes differ wholly in method and approach from those of his predecessors - van Goyen, Cuyp, Salomon van Ruysdael, and Roghman. Roghman certainly is his most direct precursor, as Philip Koninck is his immediate follower. The man whose influence was greatest on Rembrandt was the little-known Hercules Seghers, of whose work he possessed eight examples. Seghers lived misunderstood, and died in poverty. His engravings are remarkable, printed in monochrome on coloured paper; and he is said even to have printed with oil colours in two or three tints.^1 Not only was Rembrandt attracted by his work, but he adapted a plate of Seghers for his "Flight into Egypt" in the manner of Elsheimer, by substituting the Holy Family for "Tobit and the Angel," by retouching the trees, etc.; and this plate obviously inspired the composition of the National Gallery Landscape. [Footnote 1: Vosmaer.] There is a lovely landscape at Budapest of a stretch of a river and field seen behind a group of trees beneath slowly clearing storm-clouds. The trees are rather hard in treatment; the beauty lies in the fine play of sunlight which irradiates the intervening plains and atmosphere and lights up the flowing river with luminous touches. Even in Rembrandt's most sombre backgrounds there is a sense of atmosphere, in the deepest shadow a sense of motion and air. Still more beautiful is the landscape with "The Good Samaritan," in Crakow. The figures are a mere detail, such detail as Giorgione used to mark successive planes of atmosphere and indicate receding distances. The design is of twisted tree trunks upon a tapestry of rich foliage and intervening shadows. In the background lowers a dark storm-cloud; in the middle distance there is a stretch of landscape, with river, cascades, bridges, windmills, and a country wain drawn by white horses - all radiant in the brilliant white gleams of sunlight that turn the verdure to exquisite emerald, and glitter on the water and fans of the mills, on the harness and polish of the cart. The landscape with "Tobias and the Angel," in Glasgow, painted in his later period, seems inspired by a loftier mood; serene if less joyous, it is more synthetic in treatment. The magnificent portrait of "The Polish Rider," in the collection of Count Tarnowski at Dzikow, has a fine open landscape background. It is not known how or where this picturesque rider of the white horse, armed with bow and quiver full of arrows, was painted. Dr. Hofstede de Groot thinks it is done "too much in the stroke" to be other than a bona fide portrait. "The animal is alive and in vigorous action while carrying its heavily armed rider through the evening landscape, the greater part of which is wrapped in twilight while the setting sun casts its last rays on the youthful figure. Students of Polish history will recognise in his peculiar costume the accoutrements of the Lysowski Regiment. It is half European, as it were, and half Oriental: the skin under the saddle, the horse tail at the charger's neck, the two swords, one on either side of the body (that on the right passing under the saddle), and, lastly, the battle-axe, they are all elements which at this time had already disappeared from the equipment of European armies." Rembrandt's one other equestrian portrait is the "Portrait of Turenne," in the Panshanger Collection. After Saskia's death the solving of various problems of artistic expression absorbed Rembrandt wholly. He lived for his work, and it in returned deepened and broadened; every painting, indeed every stroke, bore the direct impress of this vibrant intense soul, who had passed beyond the stage of painting as the craftsman primarily, to that of the accomplished master who used his mastery of means (which to the last he continued to develop) to express his impressions of life, to depict the visions of the seer in touch with the straining heart-throbs of humanity. An endless curiosity into the mysterious workings of Life spurred him to ceaseless quest and experiment; and to this we owe that marvellous sequence of self portraits which forms an invaluable autobiography of the great painter, both as man and seer. Among the most important portraits of this period are the beautifully luminous and refined "Gentleman with a Hawk" in the Grosvenor House Collection, and its pendant, the equally reserved and delicate "Lady with a Fan"; the fine double portrait of Nicholas Berchem and his wife, and the superb, dignified presentment of Elizabeth Bas. The year 1648 is important on account of two fine religious compositions - "The Good Samaritan" and the "Supper at Emmaus" of the Louvre. Both subjects had often fascinated Rembrandt and occupied his thoughts from the beginning of his career. The Good Samaritan he repeated many times, with brush and needle. The painting of 1648 is his mature expression of sympathy with this most beautiful of the Parables. The scene is laid at the wayside inn, to which the wounded victim of life's mischance is carried at wane of day. Fromentin points out the evidence of "the great importance attached by the thinker to the direct expression of life; a building up of things that seem to exist in his inner vision, and to suggest by indefinable methods alike the precision and the hesitation of nature. . . . Nowhere a contortion, an exaggerated feature, nor a touch in the expression of the unutterable which is not at once pathetic and subdued; the whole instinct with deep feeling, rendered with a technical skill little short of miraculous." "The Supper at Emmaus" of the same year is perhaps the deepest spiritual insight of any of Rembrandt's conceptions. All needless accessories are avoided; it is treated with the utmost simplicity, yet breathes a profound sense of the reality of the Divine presence, of the marvellous spiritual Selflessness of the Risen Saviour. As Michel says of the scene: "It was reserved for Rembrandt to comprehend and translate its intimate poetry. Henceforth it seems hardly possible to conceive the scene but as he painted it." The recognition and adoration of the one disciple, the dawning wonder of the other, the curiosity of the servant, the extraordinary suggestion of the mental absorption of Christ, the sense of divinity and non-earthliness that emanates from him, are marvellously rendered; and suggest, moreover, how fine, how reverent must have been the spirit of the painter, how profound the vision of the seer. Several of Rembrandt's studies of the head of Christ exist. One, the most beautiful, is a masterly painting possibly for this picture, probably the idealised version of a young Amsterdam Jew: it belongs to M. Kann. Another, less beautiful, but more finely idealised, was lent to the Amsterdam Exhibition of 1898 by Count Raczynski of Posen. Rembrandt was a supreme master of psychological portrait-painting. He even sought to suggest the character and tendencies of his sitter as intimately expressed behind, as well as through, the shape of the eyes, the lines of the mouth and forehead, the attitude of the lips, the position and type of the hands, the strength and quality of the hair. In no work that I have seen is that knowledge better demonstrated than in this "Study for a Christ," painted in the artist's fifty-second year. No young man could have done this; one who had himself lived and suffered could alone thus interpret a life such as this, suffering such as this. At first sight the features, expression, the head itself, are a little effeminate, but the face grows on one on closer study, and there awakes suddenly the realisation of all that it is meant to convey - through eyes, forehead, and mouth. Divide the face, and the right side is that of the dreamer, the spiritual poet, with large clear eye and serene forehead; and on this side of the face Rembrandt has focussed the light. The only hint of disquietude is the touch of red under the right eyebrow. Cover the right side of the face, and what a change. Here, on the left side, in slight shadow, all the vital stress, the suffering, the physical, and, what is more terrible, the nervous exhaustion of the man is shown by those three slightly-arched lines on that side of the brow, by the slightly contracted, restless eye, by the tell-tale redness of eyelid, of eyebrow, by the furrows of the forehead, absent on the right side, even to the edge of the hair. The mouth, too, confirms the eyes with its compression of lips on the right side, and the slight lift to the left upper lip, making the lips on that side almost parted. What a story of dual nature in one individual this face tells - of the active, directing, high-wrought emotionalist, subject to terrible exhaustion; and of the calm, well-controlled, impersonal dreamer and poet, whose thought outruns the possibilities of time. Many artists, either by instinct or by reflection, have depicted the strange problem of double nature as expressed by most eyes, but I know of none who have so deliberately endeavoured to depict the life history of a strongly defined dual nature as Rembrandt has in this study for a Christ, painted in his days of deepest adversity. 1648 was a year of great rejoicing in Holland. The long war with Spain was over; the Dutch Beggars had swept the Spanish galleons out of supremacy; the peace was signed. Poets and painters alike vied with one another to commemorate the event; van der Helst and Flinck were called upon to execute important civic pieces. Rembrandt, once so popular, seems to have been forgotten. Yet he, too, evidently hoped for a commission, or it may be he competed for some stipulated design. At any rate, there is one interesting composition in grisaille intended to be worked on a large scale, now at Rotterdam, called "The Pacification of Holland," "a confused, overloaded composition, full of subtle allusions, suggested, perhaps, by some pedant of the master's acquaintance. . . . With its two compact masses of combatants separated by a lioness chained beneath a shield emblazoned with the arms of Amsterdam and the legend Soli Deo Gloria; its figure of Justice clumsily grasping a scale loaded with papers; its infinite variety of grotesque detail, is a mere jumble of enigmatical episodes. The general effect is remarkable. The neutral blue tint of the sky is happily contrasted with the predominant brown and russet tones which are heightened here and there by fat touches of pale yellow applied with superb brio for the high lights."^1 The picture was never accomplished, and the grisaille remained in Rembrandt's house until the auction sale. Perhaps he was prompted to this essay by the commission he had received a year or two previously from Prince Frederick Henry; for we know that on November 29th, 1646, he received from him 2,400 florins for a "Circumcision" and a "Nativity." This was a high price in those days, for the year before the Prince had paid only 2,100 to Rubens for two large pictures. Another proof of the lost popularity of Rembrandt is to be found in the accounts by the poet Asselijn of the two great feasts of the Guild of St. Luke, in 1653 and 1654, wherein no mention is made of his friend's name. Rembrandt's rival, van der Helst, figures prominently in the courtesies exchanged between poets and painters on the drastic reorganisation of the Guild; and though the full list of members is not given, one is surprised that Rembrandt's name should not be at least side by side with that of the younger rival. Michel concludes that Rembrandt was absent from the festival. Vosmaer, however, thinks he may have been present, for, in a poem written shortly after the fetes by Jan Vos, "Combat between Death and Nature, or the Triumph of Painting," a prophetic vision of the glories of Amsterdam, he enumerates some of the "painters and poets who swarm" in that city, among others, Rembrandt, Flinck, van der Helst, Philip Koninck, Bol; so that here, in any case, he is quoted at the head of the list. [Footnote 1: Michel.] Meanwhile, Rembrandt's little son Titus was growing to boyhood under the care of a faithful, devoted nurse, who apparently ruled the household. The widow of a trumpeter, Abraham Claesz, she had been carefully selected by Saskia, and proved herself worthy of the trust, for the child was delicate, and difficult to rear. His father drew and etched him, as he was wont to draw those near him; there is a charming and light etching of him dated about 1652, and two very fine portraits. The one, in the possession of M. Kann, dated 1655, is dressed in fancy costume. His doublet is of Rembrandt's favourite reddish brown, with a gathered white chemisette showing at the neck, a green fur-trimmed cloak, a black velvet mezzetin cap and white feather; he has pearls round his neck and in the large pendent earrings. The face, with its dark eyes and curling hair, is lovingly handled, and shows a delicate, sensitive face, a dreamy temperament, and the gravity of a child brought up among older people. Another portrait of Titus at about the same age, less fanciful, less beautiful, is in the Wallace Collection, dressed in brown, and a red cap on his soft curls. Half the face is in light and half in shadow, and the fine brown eyes are beautifully expressed. To this boy his nurse, Geertje Dircx, was so devoted, that in her will, dated 1648, she bequeathed to him all her property, excepting a small portion which should revert to her mother, and one hundred florins to be given to the daughter of a certain Pieter Beetz de Hoorn, together with her portrait. From the wording of the will, Titus obviously knew of the portrait among her possessions, and therefore it was probably in Rembrandt's house. The question arises - Was the portrait painted by Rembrandt, who, whether from gratitude or other reasons, would probably have painted the portrait of an inmate so long in his house? In the Teyler Museum there is a charming little pen and wash drawing, with an inscription identifying the model with Titus's nurse; but hitherto the portrait has not been identified. There is one portrait, however, attributed to Rembrandt, about 1648, which in my opinion is in all likelihood the one in question. It is now in M. J. Porges' collection in Paris, and was bought in Scotland not long ago by M. Sedelmeyer. It represents an old woman seated with a Bible in her lap, and her left hand resting upon it, holding her spectacles. The old face is careworn and wrinkled, the eyes red with weeping. The colour-scheme is a harmony of brilliant reds and yellows cooiing into greys. The expression is admirably rendered - a pathetic, sorrow-worn, harassed old face. My belief that this portrait represents Geertje Dircx rests on a comparison of the figure and costume with that of the inscribed drawing in the Teyler Museum, in which, unfortunately, only the back of the model is seen. But there is the same high-waisted skirt and voluminous band under the arms, the same fur trimming at neck and over shoulders pointing to a V-shape, the same kind of sleeves, and the same kind of close cap lying in folds or plaits round the head, concealing almost all the hair. The figure of the drawn model, moreover, is that of an old woman. When the picture was exhibited at the commemorative Rembrandt Exhibition in Amsterdam in 1898 there was a divergence of opinion regarding its attribution, and it was suggested that the style of handling was hardly that of Rembrandt's work at that period, neither large nor free enough, and that the colour-scheme suggested rather the work of his pupil Maes. This may be so, only it should be remembered that Maes learnt these particular tones and harmony from his master; also, the expression is so admirable, so indicative of the perturbed mental condition of the sitter, and treated with such sympathy, that I am inclined to consider it from the hand of the master. If so, it is painted somewhat after his earlier manner, but that also seems to me indicative of Rembrandt's sensitiveness, because in painting this patient old woman and her Bible his mind must have naturally reverted to his mother in her familiar attitude with her Bible, and the work would thus sympathetically fall into the earlier manner. If this surmise be correct, the strained, wearied face and tear-dimmed eyes lead one to learn without surprise that in 1650 Geertje's health and reason gave way, and she was put into an asylum at Gouda. In Oud-Holland an account is given of transactions between master and servant in 1649, to the effect that Geertje made a claim against him, stating that the annuity settled upon her was insufficient, and took out a summons against him; whereupon Rembrandt, supported by two witnesses, certified before a notary to the terms of his agreement with her. A few days later, when the nurse should have signed a deed in connection with her will, she "passionately refused, and poured out a torrent of abuse." Nevertheless, when her mind gave way, Rembrandt, at the request of her family, advanced money for her journey to, and the necessary fees for, the asylum. In 1656, when Rembrandt's bankruptcy was declared, he brought an action for the recovery of this money against Geertje's relatives, and had one Pieter Dircx, arrested. One of the witnesses called by Rembrandt was a young servant girl who worked in the house under Geertje's teaching, and was destined to play an important part in the master's life. Recently found documents show that Hendrickje Stoffels, who was the peasant girl quoted as Rembrandt's "wife" or "housemate" by Houbraken, was born at Ransdorf on the borders of Westphalia. She was uneducated, and used the sign of a cross as her signature. It is evident from the beautiful portrait in the Louvre of her that by 1652 she was no longer in the position of house-servant, but in that of housekeeper, or, in fact, of "housemate," for in that year she bore him a child, born dead. Whether or not a legal marriage ever took place is unknown; but in 1654 the elders of her church interfered and censured her method of life and refused her the Sacrament. In October of the same year she gave birth to a daughter, acknowledged by Rembrandt and christened by him Cornelia, a name already given to two of Saskia's children. She, like Saskia, sat as model to the painter, and is the subject of the finest of his nude paintings; for, owing to the severity of the religious training of the day, it was impossible to procure refined models, and Rembrandt too often contented himself with coarse, vulgar, and even hideous figures. Hendrickje's figure is not beautiful in proportion, but it has a sense of youthful strength and vigour that is beautiful in degree. The finest of these studies are the "Bathsheba" in the Louvre, 1654, the admirable "Woman Bathing" in the National Gallery, 1654, and the fine, boldly handled study of her in bed, in the Scottish National Gallery. Hendrickje, unlike Saskia, was a gentle brunette with large, faithful-looking brown eyes. In the "Bathsheba" the face is finely imagined, and if true to her suggests a certain degree of native refinement. The painting of the luminous delicate flesh-tints are, as Dr. Bode justly writes, worthy of comparison with the best work of Giorgione, Titian, and Correggio. Hendrickje employed a young girl to help her in the house, and two portraits exist also of this sturdy little peasant, "A Girl with a Broom" in the Hermitage, and another version of her in the Stockholm Museum. In spite of her lack of education Hendrickje proved herself a true helpmate to the master; she learned to help him in his direst straits, was a kind and thoughtful stepmother to Titus, and a more healthful companion for him than the nerve-distraught older nurse. The society of the rich and powerful did not attract Rembrandt; he attached himself in preference to a few men of artistic taste, theologians, and thinkers. The manners and conventions of polite society in themselves were neither natural nor congenial to him. External restraints and conventions were irksome to him. A man of the people himself, he came into intimate touch with the underlying springs of human life more easily among the uncultured. Thus it was that the loving gentle nature of the devoted Hendrickje, with her obvious refinement of heart, appealed to the lonely painter, helpless in his home without a woman's aid, and made him content with her as Saskia's substitute. Once more Rembrandt grew happy; once more his home is kept in order; and again he is able to devote himself untiringly to the production of his maturest and some of his finest work. The series of portraits of himself, etched and painted at this date, show him to be an older and graver man. The painting of 1646 in Buckingham Palace, or that of 1655 in the Wallace Collection, and the etching of himself, a drawing of 1648, show him aged and dignified, with deeply lined face, and dressed in simple, severe garb. All the fantasy and display of the earlier portraits are gone; and the sorely tried man, the worker, the thinker, only, is revealed. In these years of comparative peace - for difficulties were gathering around him in hopeless tangle - he produced magnificent work, such as the dignified "Portrait of an Old Man," in a crimson dress and heavy mantle, at Dresden; a broad, powerful study, the "Man in Armour," at Cassel, and another in Glasgow; "Joseph and Potiphar's Wife," in Berlin (another version is at the Hermitage), a superb harmony of rich colour. "To avoid the gaudiness and incoherence of multiple tints he has with exquisite art confined the general tonality to the play of two complementary colours, opposing the various reds of the picture to skilfully distributed greens."^1 To the same year, according to a journal in the Six family, belongs the admirable portrait of "Burgomeister Six," Rembrandt's constant friend, from whom the year before the painter had borrowed money. Rapidly executed in a few hours with bold vigorous touch, every stroke tells, and the study is characterised by freshness and spontaneity, by broad simplicity and careful emphasis. The dominant colours are greys, soft reds and gold, in marvellous harmony. The treatment of the face is admirable and sympathetic - the fine temperament of his friend is lovingly suggested; the character and quality of the work, especially of the broadly brushed hands and gloves, is masterly in the highest degree. The portrait is still in the family of the Burghermaster, and hangs opposite to that of his mother, Anna Wymer, the daughter of Dr. Tulp, painted in 1641, in a smoother and more elaborate manner. [See Woman Bathing: Hendrickje, unlike Saskia, was a gentle brunette with large, faithful-looking brown eyes.] [Footnote 1: Michel.] The friendship between Rembrandt and Six arose, doubtless, through the mediumship of Dr. Tulp, whose daughter Jan Six married, a friendship that stood the master in good stead in the days of his adversity. Jan Six was a cultivated man of fine tastes; he became Burghermaster in later life, and owned a charming house in the country whose doors were ever open to the painter. Moreover, Jan Six was an author. In 1648 he published a tragedy, entitled Medea, for which Rembrandt etched the illustration of the "Marriage of Jason and Creusa." It was for him probably that Rembrandt painted the small head of Dr. Ephraim Bonus, a Portuguese Jew, now in the Six Collection. In the same year he etched the interesting portrait of Jan Six standing at the window of his study, book in hand, with a pile of books lying on a chair, his sword and cloak thrown on a couch beside him.