Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0008/00086.txt

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$Title{Rembrandt
Chapter VIII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Sharp, Elizabeth A.}
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$Subject{rembrandt
portrait
painted
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portraits}
$Date{}
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Title:       Rembrandt
Author:      Sharp, Elizabeth A.

Chapter VIII

Chapter VIII - Bankruptcy - Last Days

     Bankruptcy - Causes - Commercial depression - Rembrandt's monetary
difficulties - Claim on behalf of Titus - Partnership between Titus and
Hendrickje - Finest etched portraits - Solace in work - Portraiture - Second
anatomy-picture - Biblical subjects - Prolific years - De Piles' records as to
the painter's latest method of portraiture - Studies of old women and of
himself - House in the Rozengracht - Commissioned picture for the town hall -
"The Syndics of the Cloth Hall" - Highest achievement - Death of Hendrickje -
Latest paintings - Rembrandt's last pupil - The "Family Group" at Brunswick -
Last portraits of himself - Death.

     And Rembrandt fell upon evil days.  Popularity, ease and comfort, finally
his home went from him, and he was declared bankrupt in 1656. Latter-day
biographers and specialists - Scheltema and Vosmaer, Messrs. Bredius, Bode, de
Roever, and Hofstede de Groot - have made patient inquiry into available
documents and have made plain the reason of his failure.  It was brought
about, in minor part, by his decreased popularity owing to his independence of
thought and method, by his refusal to paint in the popular, "clear" method
exemplified pre-eminently by Van Dyck; and by the general commercial
depression of Holland at that time, owing to the renewal of hostilities with
Spain and war with England.  Moreover, the Hollanders had been speculating
heavily in bulbs, etc., and had suffered heavy losses, so that many of the
important houses in Amsterdam stood empty.  The major cause of the painter's
misfortunes lay in his temperamental difficulty in handling money, in his lack
of foresight, his generosity and extravagance.  Although frugal in his habits,
he was lavish in expenditure.  The high prices commanded by his pictures gave
him ample means for a time.  The facility of making money obliterated any
tendency to economy he may have had in youth, and encouraged him in his very
natural mania for collecting pictures, engravings, and bric-a-bac.

     The attempted purchase of his house in the Breedstraat was his final
undoing.  In 1639 he paid down the half only of the stipulated price of 13,000
florins.  He failed to pay further instalments, and after 1649 to pay the
interest, or even the rates which then devolved on the owner of the house.  He
never possessed ready money; blind to his own interests, he gave no thought to
the future.  Liberal to friends and artists in trouble, he gave out large sums
for which he was rarely repaid.  We know of his having twice lent money to
Uylenborch in 1631 and 1640.  He helped his own family; lent money to his
brother Adrian, the miller, whose portrait is in the Hague Museum, and to
Lysbeth, who is inscribed on the Leyden register of rates as "almost bankrupt
and in very reduced circumstances." When he had no ready money he borrowed
from the innumerable money-lenders at high rates.  Finally, after many years
of futile waiting, the owner of the house claimed immediate payment.
Rembrandt endeavoured to collect moneys due to him from various sources, but
failed.  Among other projects, a collector named Dirck von Cattenbruch
proposed various business arrangements and a loan of 1,000 florins in exchange
for various pictures and engravings, and the transaction was fulfilled in
part.  Rembrandt also borrowed 8,400 florins, a loan declared before the Court
of Sheriffs.  With this he paid part of his debt, and further gave a mortgage
on his house to the value of 1,170 florins. Fresh difficulties arose when
Saskia's relatives stepped in to claim and protect her son's portion.  A
statement was made showing that Rembrandt's property, in accordance with
Saskia's will, had been estimated at 40,750 florins; 20,375 florins were
claimed for Titus.  Thereupon Rembrandt appeared before the Chamber of Orphans
and made over to Titus his interest in his house.  His creditors were
incensed, and a series of complicated lawsuits ensued which ended in the
declaration of his bankruptcy in 1656, when an inventory was made by order of
the Court of "all the pictures, furniture and household goods of the debtor
Rembrandt von Rijn inhabiting the Breedstraat, near St. Anthony's loch."
Towards the close of 1657 the Commissioners of the Bankruptcy Court ordered
the sale of Rembrandt's goods "collected with great discrimination"; a sale
that extended over six days, but realised the very inadequate sum of 5,000
florins; and the painter, at the age of fifty-one, was turned out of his home,
and sought refuge in an inn, the "Imperial Crown," in the Kalverstraat, and
had to begin life again.

     However, he was not wholly desolate.  Titus and the faithful Hendrickje
exerted themselves on his behalf.  In 1657 Titus made his will in such a way
that he became protector of Hendrickje and Cornelia, to whom he bequeathed his
property on condition that Rembrandt should during his lifetime enjoy the
income therefrom.  No mention is made in the inventory of sale of Rembrandt's
working materials, nor of his copper plates, which, doubtless, he took with
him.  That these latter were not all taken from him, or else were bought in by
Titus for his father, is shown by the arrangement Titus and Hendrickje entered
into on the painter's behalf in 1660, for all his own earnings went to his
creditors.  The two in question entered into joint partnership as dealers in
pictures, engravings, curios, and into this they each embarked their whole
fortunes, thus showing that Hendrickje either held or had earned money
previously.  Rembrandt was to be their adviser, and as such was to board and
lodge with them.  Titus allowed him 950 florins, and Hendrickje 800, to be
repaid as soon as Rembrandt could earn it.  According to Houbraken, Titus
travelled about selling his father's etchings, which were much sought for by
collectors, and commanded good prices.

     During these years of stress, from 1655-61, Rembrandt produced some of
his finest etchings, several of them worked wholly in dry-point.  Among these
are the portraits of the two Haarings - members of the Insolvency Board - of
Dr. Arnoldus Tholinx, that was followed in 1656 by the magnificently painted
portrait of this eminent man, a masterpiece of broad, synthetic handling,
vigorous modelling, and brilliant chiaroscuro.  He also executed the superb
etched portraits of Johannes Lutma, Abraham Fransz, the large plate of
Coppenol, the "Goldsmith," five admirable nude studies of a woman, and among
other religious subjects, "Abraham's Sacrifice," "Abraham Entertaining the
Angels," "Jesus and the Samaritan Woman," and the unrivalled dry-point, "St.
Francis Praying." After "The Woman and the Arrow" he produced no more
etchings, possibly owing to the weakening of his eyesight.

     Notwithstanding the great stress and tension of these harassed years,
filled with anxieties and endless annoyances, Rembrandt continued his painting
with unabated powers, with unflagging zeal.  In work only did he find rest -
there only could he forget the difficulties that beset him. Strength and
satisfaction came to him from the expression of the vivid, upwelling inner
life that grew deeper as the good things of this life forsook him.  The
spiritual quest never slackened: the problem of its outward expression
continuously absorbed him.  Facility born of his extraordinary mastery of
materials never brought a lessening of effort, a slackening of strenuousness.
To the year of his bankruptcy belong some of his finest portraits, wrought
with extraordinary brilliancy, power, and simplicity of synthesis.  Two stand
out pre-eminently: "The Portrait of a Mathematician," at Cassel, a profoundly
psychological study and fine expression of intellectual life, painted in tawny
browns and reds, with delicate chiaroscuro and golden luminosity, a marvellous
suggestion of deep thought lit by sudden illumination; and the "Portrait of
Dr. Arnoldus Tholinx," a contrast as to colour-scheme, but equally fine in
intuitive conception.  It is painted with great reserve of colour, black
costume and hat, but the same healthful life is suggested by the vivid
carnations, the force of character by the broad modelling, the powerful brain
by the penetrative gaze of the keen eyes.

     Possibly it was through Dr. Tholinx that the painter received the
commission from the Surgeons' Hall to paint a second anatomy-picture, to
commemorate the professorship of Dr. Johannes Deyman.  The picture
unfortunately was burnt in 1723, the mutilated fragment that remains in the
Rijksmuseum testifies to the breadth and power of the handling.  A sketch by
Dilhoff, made in 1660, shows that the painter did not attempt to swerve from
the conventional method of composition.  The operator stands near a corpse
with open abdomen, and lectures to nine students, while his assistant stands
beside him holding the brain pan in his hand.  Reynolds saw it in 1781 and
praised the foreshortening of the corpse (obviously suggested by a drawing by
Mantegna) and the sublimity of the head.  At this time Rembrandt concerned
himself more seriously than ever with biblical subjects, and four magnificent
examples date to this time, in which the golden light and dramatic chiaroscuro
of "The March Out" merge into a pervasive harmony of gold and tawny brown,
quiet russets, pure reds, pearl greys, and neutral colours.  In such wise is
painted the fine "Denial of Peter" and "Pilate Washing his Hands." Finer still
is the superb "Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph," a profound expression of
human sentiment dominated by the calm of serene age and the solemnity of
approaching death.  Very subtly are the variations of age and gradations of
vitality suggested; so fine is the impression that the mastery of means is
almost unnoticed, the complete subservience of the handling to the poetical
conception wrought with broad, dignified reticence. Very remarkable, also, is
the grisaille of "St. John the Baptist Preaching," a complete study in browns,
probably for an etching.  There is a multiplicity of detail; in an impressive
landscape the preacher addresses an audience of rich and poor, young and old,
near whom are sundry camels, dogs, etc. Nevertheless, owing to the rhythmical
lines of the composition, the fine distribution of masses, the balance of the
grouping, the great simplicity of effect is preserved, and a sense of unity
produced by the magnetic spell of the inspired prophet.  Zoomer saw this
grisaille in 1702 and described it as a "picture as original and the art as
extraordinary as it is possible to imagine." Another painting of great repute
in its day, "The Adoration of the Magi," a "celebrated picture with the roof
of Woerden tiles, superb and vigorous, in his best manner." It is now in the
collection at Buckingham Palace.

     From 1658-60 were prolific years.  In 1658 he painted the last portrait
of himself in fantastic array, probably before the break up of his home.  He
represents himself seated, staff in hand, and wearing a wide cloak, soft
mezzetin velvet hat low on his head, concealing his hair, a loose robe drawn
in gathers over the chest.  Round and below his neck hangs a sword girdle. The
face is very remarkable, quiet in expression and finely modelled; a man of
strength of purpose and nobility of outlook, with clear bright eyes, and
dignified mien as yet unbroken by the loss of all his household gods.  To the
same years belongs probably the little portrait of Coppenol in the Ashburton
Collection, highly elaborate, of which the etching is an exact reproduction.
De Piles wrote of his later portrait: "It was his custom to place his models
directly beneath a strongly concentrated light.  By this means the shadows
were made intense, while the surfaces which caught the light were brought more
closely together, the general effect gaining in solidity and tangibility; the
forms modelled with great breadth, and a delicate transparency in the half
shadows." In this method he painted the fascinating personality of the
"Nicolaus Bruyningh" portrait, the "Capuchin" of the National Gallery, Lord
Wemyss's "Monk," with his head in shadow and the light on his book, Lord
Feversham's "Portrait of a Merchant," Lord Spencer's "Study of a Youth," and
two studies of old men in the National Gallery and the Pitti.  To this period
also belong many of his fine and pathetic studies of old women, rendered with
an intuitive sympathy that has never been surpassed, such as the
"Burghermaster's Wife" in the National Gallery, with thin sad old face lined
with illness and suffering, the "Old Woman Reading," with brown hood and white
fichu, belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch, or the powerfully modelled imposing
"Old Woman Cutting her Nails," belonging to M. Kann.  This old woman is clad
in a yellow gown and brown bodice with head draperies of pale yellow and grey;
the light falls full on her head, admirable in modelling and quality.  Titus
was frequently his father's model in these days.  There is a portrait of him
as a young man in the Louvre, and Dr. Bode considers him to have been the
model for two other portraits in that gallery. Of himself, Rembrandt painted
the portraits that are in the Uffizi and in the Belvedere, clad in his working
dress; also one belonging to Lord Ellesmere, and the other two in the Wallace
Collection and the Louvre.  In these self-presentments there are no longer
evidences of prosperity, no fantasy of adornment; they show an aging harassed
man with face deeply lined and furrowed, with eyes sad and troubled, in plain
working dress.  If one case his hands are in his belt, in another he holds his
palette and brushes; his hair is thin and grizzled, his head bound in a white
cap.  Nothing is left to him but his painting materials and clothes of homely
cloth; and so careless has he become of his appearance that we are told when
at his easel he "wiped his brushes on the hinder portions of his dress."

     In 1661 he settled once more in a home of his own on the Rozengracht,
where, with the exception of one year - 1664-5 - he lived till his death.
Doubtless in this new home was painted the portrait of Hendrickje in white
dress and red mantle, gold striped cap and black ribbon and ring round her
neck, standing at an open window; also the "Venus and Cupid" of the Louvre,
probably a portrait of her and Cornelia.

     That Rembrandt was not wholly forgotten by his townsmen is proved by the
two important commissions he received in 1661-2.  The first was a picture for
the Town Hall of Amsterdam, the second was his celebrated "Syndics." Owing to
the researches of M. de Roever, it is now known that in 1659 Flinck was
appointed to decorate the town hall with a series of twelve pictures at 1,000
florins each, and on his death the commission for one of these passed on to
his old master, probably through the intervention of Dr. Tulp.  A fragment of
the original is now in the Stockholm Museum, and in the Munich Print Room
there is a drawing that gives an idea of the whole composition, now known to
represent "The Midnight Banquet of Claudius Civilis, at which he persuaded the
Batavians to throw off the Roman Yoke," a subject favoured by Vondel and other
poets of the day on account of the similarity between the early struggles of
the Batavians against the Romans, and of the Dutch against the Spaniards.
Apparently Rembrandt's free and decorative handling of his subject did not
please the authorities.  What actually occurred is unknown, except that a
mediocre painting was put up in its place; and that eventually the central
group of his composition, broadly and romantically treated, and of an
extraordinary brilliance of chiaroscuro, was cut out of the larger canvas, and
is all that now remains of the original.

     The second commission met with better fate, and "The Syndics of the Cloth
Hall" ranks as the culminating masterpiece of the painter's life-work.
Rembrandt delivered this magnificent painting to the Guild of Drapers, or
Clothworkers, in 1661, to be hung in the Chamber of the Controllers and
Gaugers of Cloth in the Staalhof, where the following injunction to the Guild
is painted on a panel in a Guild-picture by Aert Pietersen in 1599: "Conform
to your vows in all matters clearly within their jurisdiction; live honestly;
be not influenced in your judgment by favour, hatred, or personal interest."
In this painting Rembrandt has produced his highest achievement with the
simplest means, and within the strict limits of conventional requirements. The
five Syndics, black hats on head, are ranged round a sloping table, with their
ledger and their money-bag beside them.  The bareheaded servant stands behind;
one member rises to his feet, and all the others raise their eyes apparently
at the approach of an unseen intruder.  The accessories are of the simplest -
a brown-panelled room, a table covered with a rich red-patterned Turkey cloth,
and dull red leather-covered chairs.  The costumes are black, with white
Puritan collars, and bring out in strong relief the brilliant carnations; a
rich golden light floods fully and softly into the room.  The faces are
modelled with extraordinary breadth and strength, and painted with thick
impasto; the structure is solid, the values admirable, the unity and quality
of imposing mastery.  The greatest reserve of means, careful emphasis of
essentials, and wonderful harmony and luminosity are used to express in
unmistakable terms the probity and uprightness of these burghers of Amsterdam,
with their strong, quiet faces, and bright, intelligent, purposeful eyes.
Fromentin justly wrote of this wonderful painting, "So perfect is the balance
of parts, that the general impression would be that of sobriety and reticence,
were it not for the undercurrent of nerves, of flame, of impatience, we divine
beneath the outwardly calm maturity of the master."

     About 1662 Rembrandt lost his faithful housemate.  By Hendrickje's will,
discovered by Dr. Bredius, she made Cornelia her heiress; and gave Rembrandt,
as guardian, the life interest of her money which, failing Cornelia, she
willed to Titus.  To this date belong several fine compositions, notably "The
Praying Pilgrim," painted in yellow-grey tones, of high quality and unity of
intention; two portraits of men in the possession of Lord Wimborne and Lord
Iveagh, and that belonging to Mr. Boughton Knight called "Rembrandt's Cook."
During the last years of his life Rembrandt's health failed, and his
productions, according to Dr. Bode, are rather studies of himself and his
intimates than commissioned portraits.  His last paintings are marked by
inequalities of handling and changes of method.  Breadth and elaboration,
thick impasto and merely sketched surfaces are used side by side on the same
canvas; delicate handling, and modelling by means of the butt end of brush or
the palette knife used more or less experimentally, according to the master's
whim, but usually with extraordinary effect when regarded from a distance.
Such treatment, for instance, is seen in the powerful portrait of a man and
woman misnamed "The Jewish Bride," or "Ruth and Boaz," in the Rijksmuseum, a
marvellous study of reds and golds, recalling in colour scheme and handling
the brilliant "David Playing before Saul" of 1660, so masterly in its handling
of textures and surfaces, but in the opinion of some, spoilt by the
insignificance of the uninspired figure of the harper in the right-hand corner
of the composition.  The "Death of Lucretia" is apparently an experiment of
the master's after the manner of Titian, and of it Burger wrote: "It is
painted with gold"; and to a similar date belongs the fine so-called "Workers
in the Vineyard," in the Wallace Collection.

     In 1665 the long dispute with the creditors ended, and the majority of
Titus, upon the application of himself and his father, was officially
permitted a year before the legal date, and he received his portion of his
mother's inheritance and balance of sale, namely, 6,952 florins.  At this
period there came to Rembrandt his last and devoted pupil, Aert de Gelder, to
work in his reconstructed home in the Rozengracht.

     Among the master's last works, always of great breadth and simplicity of
means, are the portrait of a young girl in a white fur-trimmed mantle called
"Rembrandt's Daughter"; the portrait of a woman, in the National Gallery; the
portrait of an old man, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire; and the superb
"Family Group," in the Brunswick Gallery.  This represents a father, mother,
and three children wrought in a scheme of reds, pink and yellow, with
brilliant high tones and intense blacks, a jewel-like radiance and soft,
velvety colours, painted with extraordinary variations and contrasts of
methods, yet withal, from a distance, "logical and vigorous.  The values
balance themselves, colours sing in radiant melody . . . a stupendous creation
which combines the vague poetry of dreams with the manifestation of intense
reality."^1

[Footnote 1: Michel.]

     In 1668 Rembrandt produced the remarkable "Flagellation," now at
Darmstadt, and the fine "Return of the Prodigal," at the Hermitage, described
by M. Paul Mantz as an heroic painting "in which art finds most eloquent and
moving expression. . . .  Never did Rembrandt show greater power, never was
his speech more persuasive. . . .  Here he shows all the formidable strength
of the unchained lion" in the "fine frenzy" of the brushwork.

     To the last he painted portraits of himself.  Foremost among these is a
superb half-length figure facing the spectator, and holding a palette,
maulstick, and brushes; he wears a brown furlined mantle against a luminous
brown background, and the aged, rugged face and grizzled hair is surmounted by
a white cap.  To the right on the background a semicircle is traced; for what
purpose is not obvious unless to balance the palette.  A noticeable point is
that the hands do not show, and all the high lights are focussed on the cap.
This masterpiece belongs to Lord Iveagh.  There is another portrait of himself
as an old man in the Uffizi, and one in Vienna; in both he is wearing his
working dress.  In another, belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch, suffering and
adversity are revealed in the lined, rugged features, in the hair, now white,
in the tired mouth and furrowed brow, in strong hands patiently folded;
nevertheless the great, clear bright eyes look out before him.  Stranger
still, in the last of this inimitable series of self-portraits, belonging to
Herr v. Carstanjen, from the Double collection, he represents himself not
beaten or wholly overcome by life's buffets, but laughing with toothless gums
and kindly smile, indicative of the enduring youthfulness of the great soul
pulsating behind the trammels of age.

     Misfortune pursued him to the last.  In 1668 his son Titus, who had
married a cousin in 1667, died, leaving a little daughter, Titia, a grief the
old father did not long survive.  Rembrandt died in deep poverty and oblivion,
leaving nothing but "his clothes of wool and linen and his working
instruments." In the register of the Wester Kirk is the following entry:
"Tuesday, Oct. 8th, 1669, Rembrandt van Rijn, painter on the Roozegraft,
opposite the Doolhof.  Leaves two children."