The word imagination shimmers in the mind along with 'inspiration' on a higher level than invention, construction or observation. In the Renaissance mind and earlier the true artists were the poets. Painters and sculptors suffered under the lesser designation as artisans/craftsmen. Unrecognised as artists because they were simple copyists, therefore without imagination. Vasari and his artist subjects worked hard to change this by equating their efforts with the imagination of the poet. Thanks to their efforts the visual arts now seem to top the charts as far as prices paid for our products are concerned. But there is a down side.
In the arts the word has come to mean working without reference to nature. So the expectation of imagination from the visual arts has inadvertently come to mean fantasy: to out weigh observation. Whereas what we have actually admired in the past is the vivid observation of nature in which imagination enters as much and as little as in daily life. The patches of light that come to our retina have to be interpreted by the brain. They are recognised usually in spite of inadequate data.
Every act of recognition requires memories and imagination. When I look at the chair beside my bed I see patches of dark brown and lighter brown light. The colour relationships remind me of corduroy and my memory of casting aside my trousers allows me to recognise the patches of light as my trousers but there is no evidence in the shapes I see that these are indeed trousers. It is the memory of light on corduroy that has given the clue to my deduction. Every act of recognition could be described as a discovery because we need imagination for the simplest acts that allow us to find our way in the world. Imagination is not rare it is an every day necessity.
When Copernicus discovered that the earth was circling the sun he was using his imagination to see the orbits from outer space. That discovery has shaken the world so badly that had he advertised it he would probably have been burnt at the stake. There is a qualitative and a quantitative difference between my finding of my trousers and Copernicus' vision based on data that was thousands of years old. His was the greatest leap of the imagination made by Man. It has reduced our status from the centre of the universe to a tiny speck in a probable multiverse. The imagination has grown in status based on Copernicus and his like but it is sensible to regard it also as normal and everyday. We need to distinguish between the low flights of fancy and the high flights of imagination.
The significance of a discovery needs to be the measure of its importance. We need to take some of the unreasonable shine from the word. Imagination can be vastly important or everyday insignificant. I fear that art historians have been over impressed by Vasari's arguments and have illogically reasoned that as Rembrandt is undoubtedly exceptional he must therefore have worked from imagination. Alas. this is hopelessly wide of the mark. Yes Rembrandt possessed a wonderful imaginative empathy with his subjects but he observed them in reality. The scholars have imposed on a master of immeasurable importance, one who consistently claimed to work from observation “anything else was worthless in his eyes” - a method of work that does not fit at all. To make him fit his new work description they have had to discard more than half his genuine works. When Rembrandt is obliged to work by construction, with flying angels for instance, he makes sure that we do not take him seriously. (Link to flying angels)
It is indeed surprising that so many scholars have subscribed to the absurd idea of his imaginative construction for so long in the face of so much contrary evidence, and while doing immeasurable harm. My article on Rembrandt's use of mirrors (Burlington Feb.1977) should have dispelled any remaining doubts about the unanimous testimony of Rembrandt's contemporaries in this respect. Changing entrenched beliefs requires much patience – as Max Plank observed “science advances funeral by funeral”. The damage to Rembrandt and therefore to art continues unabated. At Harvard the only time we came near to debating the issue – I would claim to have won hands down but clearly the scholars took a different view because they have brushed aside my evidence as if it did not exist. There is no evidence for their view other than the fact that many scholars have accepted it unquestioningly for nearly one hundred years!
This history may have shocked you, it has shocked many who have visited my museum near Siena. It is clear that art historians are not doing the job we expect of them. They behave more like medieval theologians defending their faith than historians seeking the truth according to the evidence. Figurative artists in Britain are used to being described as “the wrong kind of artists”. I am trying to persuade you that art historians are on the whole - the wrong kind of people to dictate the course of art. Very much the wrong kind of people to decide who Rembrandt was: what works are his and which should be cast aside. Because of Rembrandt's colossal status these misconceptions have distorted the course of art for a century.
By the end of the 19th C it became clear that the artists practicing observation were much better critics of art than were the theoreticians. This embarrassing situation for the critics has been successfully side-stepped in modern times by the total eclipse of observed art from modern media and museums where theorists rule supreme. This situation has persisted for so long that I doubt there is a theoretician left and ever fewer modern artists who have anything useful to say about the study of the human figure; the most demanding of all subjects. Though there are still many artists who regard observation as their primary task, none have been accorded the prestige of the clowns and daubers promoted by the theorists. We have been in this position so long that few can remember those blessed epochs when artists' reputations depended on the opinion of their peers not on the critics' theories.
Art has been a distinguishing characteristic of mankind for over 40,000 years. If we are to understand ourselves the history of art matters. It matters to us all, not just artists or art historians. Art has been highly valued in the past because it has played an important role in our perception of the world about us. What we call fine art examines our sensations and tries to make sense of them. Art has been one of the chief ways in which we evaluate a civilisation and for good reason.
We can probably agree that having left art historians in charge of “encouraging the arts” the results are disappointing if not downright disgraceful. It is surely time for a root and branch revision of where we want to go with art.
I think we can learn from my experience that art history will not voluntarily reform itself. Meeting them one by one art historians seem civilised people but as an organisation they coalesce in defence of their group failures and that usually means a barricade of silence in the face of criticism; no discussion and certainly no change of mind.
Success in art depends on reputation and reputation today depends entirely on promotion in the media rather than talent or useful ideas. Many artists have succumbed to the rewards of conforming to the requirements of The Tate Gallery's “the right kind of artist”. They win the prizes get the exhibitions and dominate the reviews. They finally get bought by the museums; in terms of status and an ability to earn a living from their art, it will be found that the majority of those who have become rich through their art in Britain are darlings of the Arts Council & Tate Gallery; the rest have been promoted by Sacchi, the advertiser, master of promotion. Very few make it without this backing. This is not the way to promote civilisation. Even at the lower income level of teaching art, it is those that conform to modernist ideas who are rewarded. State funded art schools in Britain are uniformly ignoring traditional methods of teaching observation. Even craft teaching has suffered as a result.
Previous experience shows that the rebels against the status quo – the Impressionists, The Salon des Refusés, Cezanne, Van Gogh etc. were fighting the accepted ideas of their time. But today's rebels against tradition do so ironically with heavy government backing; our taxes supporting them. Naturally, the favoured few can be relied upon to support this madhouse that is their paymaster and protector. Many artists who are ignored by the critics are more talented and deserving than the so called “avantgard” as defined by the “experts”.
At present there is no effective way in which common sense can be brought to bear on the decisions of the establishment art hierarchy. They have noted that the rebels of yesteryear were regarded as mad and so have been pursuing a policy of promoting the outrageous. They have done this for so long that most normal people feel that they know nothing about art. Not only the man in the street but also those in government feel they have not the knowledge to intervene. They reason there must be something special in modern art if such high prices are paid for it. But art patronage has taken the place of roulette or racing for excitement. Without the control of a Jockey Club it naturally attracts the spinners and fraudsters. We passively accept the art of our times. We leave it in the hands of the unworthy who regale us with nonsensical “artbollocks” while enriching themselves and making the teaching of art all but impossible. This is certainly not the way towards a more civilised, united society.
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There is a way forward. My recommendation is that we put artists back in charge of visual culture. There are many schools of thought in the arts. They scarcely speak to one another but most individuals could be inducted into one of a few separate schools. Abstract (hard and soft edge) Fantasy & Performance, Traditional Naturalists, Expressionist & Realist, for the purpose of exhibiting and propaganda..
Those who observe from nature do not get a chance under the present system. The establishment now regard the study of nature as mere imitation and therefore not “creative”. This attitude seems to me to be deeply flawed because it fails to recognise that every act of perception is necessarily creative: we are obliged to construct our world view from the patchy collection of sensations that come our way. It is the recognition of this central handicap of the human condition that the teaching of art should address. It is uniquely qualified to do so. Not that drawing can cure it but it can raise our awareness of the problem. The visual arts are constantly leaping the gap between our concepts and the reality they represent. I would argue that this is their most valuable role: the visual arts can make us aware of the richness of nature and the relative poverty of our conceptions. An artist's first efforts often need to be modified later with a fresh eye. These adjustments and corrections are a method of self-education for artists. The practice of art can rekindle the sensation that gave rise to a inadequate concept and increase its relevance. The progress of art used to be measured in these terms. We must learn again to distinguish between novelty and originality.
Left to themselves artists will certainly disagree. Therefore my proposal is to let each school of thought have a year or two to spend government money in turn. They would give the prizes and put on public shows from which they could make purchases for the state museums and ideally have their own separate schools to teach their particular approach. Soon critics would emerge as advocates for each separate school and the public could see there is much more choice available in the arts. It would be fairer and clearer and might therefore find the layman enthusiastic for the arts again. The results could not possibly be worse than the present state of art and it might well provide just the stimulus that has died in the hands of inadequate experts and cynical investment patrons who lack judgement. It is certainly time for a change.
When we consider Rembrandt's standing among his contemporaries it is remarkable that there should be so little documentary evidence about him. What there is, is readily available in English translation. I shall concern myself only with those pieces of evidence which seem to have acquired new significance in the light of my own studies.
Only seven letters exist in Rembrandt's hand. They are of a purely business nature and are all addressed to Constantijn Huygens, Secretary of State to the Stadholder Frederick Henry. The letters all date from early in Rembrandt's career. Their subject matter includes the delivery of six paintings of The Passion, and the payment for these. None of the letters gives the least indication of having come from a 'difficult' man: on the contrary, Rembrandt is obsequious, not unduly flustered by non-payment and seems only a little disappointed that His Highness should finally have paid only half the price the painter had proposed. They are the letters of a man who knows on which side his bread is buttered, but did not always find the will to deliver on time. He insisted on giving Huygens a large and horrifying painting, The Blinding of Samson against the will of the recipient!
The letters tell us little enough. It is in the inventory of his belongings that Rembrandt reveals more of himself. His misfortune is useful for us in that a complete inventory of his possessions was taken at the time of his near bankruptcy in 1656. By far the largest category was that of works by other artists, of which there were over sixty. When we add to this the large number of books of engravings, and the drawings and the sculpture, we begin to realise the scale of Rembrandt's remarkable appetite for art. He seems to have delighted in the works of Adriaen Brouwer (who specialised in scenes from low life). The works by other contemporaries - his master Lastman; Pinas, reputedly also his teacher; his fellow student Lievens; Seghers, whose etching plates he inherited - seem to reflect his loyalties as a man. They cannot be taken as a completely reliable guide to his tastes as an artist. The books of drawings and engravings probably reflect his real interests far more accurately, but with a collector as catholic and voracious as Rembrandt clearly was, chance must have played a part.
He was also a dealer who expected to profit from the resale of some of his collection. Early in his career, Rembrandt became a partner to Hendrick van Uylenburch (his wife, Saskia's uncle) who dealt in pictures, and we cannot be certain which items in his collection were bought simply for resale, as dealer's stock.
Rembrandt had a reputation for rashness. Balduccini wrote (on the evidence of Bernard Keillh, a Rembrandt student of eight years' standing): "He deserves, however, great praise for his generosity, extravagant though it may have been, for he thought so highly of his art that when similar things were auctioned - especially paintings and drawings by great artists of his own country he raised the initial price so high that there was never a second buyer. He said he did this in order to raise the status of his profession. He was also very generous in lending his possessions to other painters whenever they needed them for their work". (Lecaldano, 1973, p.9)
Certain items, however, are an entirely reliable guide; either because of their very number, or because we know that Rembrandt made use of them for two very careful copies. (Mantegna's general approach to drawing bears a very close affinity to Rembrandt's, if one looks beneath the superficial differences of manner.) There were also engravings after Raphael and even a number of original works by him. Rembrandt had scrapbooks of works of leading Masters of the whole world, including one 'very large, with almost all the works of Titian' (presumably of engravings after Titian). Item 230 is 'one little child by Michelangelo'. In all there are some thirty scrapbooks or folders. He may have bought them as stock, like many of his professional contemporaries he dealt in art of all kinds.
Rembrandt clearly venerated the works of many of the great Masters, but not uncritically. His taste favoured those elements that involved a closer contact with nature; the more florid 'arty' elements clearly provoked his displeasure. Lord Clark has perceptively contrasted Rembrandt's treatment of The Rape of Ganymede with versions by Michelangelo and Titian. He says: "I think Rembrandt was shocked and he was determined that his picture should shock." (Clark, 1978, p.45) The point, like that of Rembrandt's Descent from the Cross, was to shock with the contrast between his own 'truth' and the contrived 'art' of others. Clark continues: 'there is no doubt that Rembrandt's image gains immense power from his struggle against the potent charms of classic art. It is like one of those blasphemies that precede conversion' (p.47). My own view is that the blasphemies ceased but that the conversion never came. The calm of Rembrandt's late paintings is not the unmoved Olympian stability of classical antiquity but a more earthly tranquillity, the result of resignation and old age. Rembrandt maintained his allegiance to the real world and he remained true to his own experience, but with age his responses to the art of others mellowed. His youthful work veered between straight competition with Rubens (as seen in The Rape of Proserpine) and self assertive criticism of 'high art'.
As he matured, the combative element in his character waned. Consequently his attitude to the art of others became less clear; far from becoming more traditional, I believe that he became quietly certain of his own very individual path.
Rembrandt owned a truly astonishing number of Roman portrait busts, some in plaster copies, but possibly as many as thirty in the stone originals. Such works were eagerly sought after by collectors in Rembrandt's day, and we know that they commanded a very high price. A great deal of his capital must have been tied up in them. His appetite for Roman portraits has sometimes puzzled modern scholars, few of whom share the seventeenth-century enthusiasm for that genre. I seek to explain this enthusiasm in my syntax video.
Two books of drawing of sculpture made by Rembrandt from the Antique which are mentioned in the inventory have alas been lost but the abundant evidence for Rembrandt’s debt to Roman portraiture is there, in his work.
The importance of the large collection of plaster casts from life, found among Rembrandt's possessions, has been overlooked. Hands and heads figure prominently among the baskets full of plaster casts listed in the inventory. One head is mentioned in the inventory as having been over painted by Rembrandt himself. Such a head could have been used as a substitute for a live model for a painting. I believe that such casts were used not only for the purpose of instructing students but also by Rembrandt himself; to help him complete drawings after the models had stopped posing. Houbraken mentions that it is rare to see in Rembrandt's work a beautifully painted hand. Houbraken must have been very unlucky in the Rembrandts he knew, but it is true that in Rembrandt's drawings of hands the quality varies greatly. At one moment he seems able to make the most beautifully expressive hand with a few apparently casual strokes of the quill; and yet he is prepared to take the etching of The Woman with the Arrow (Pl.15a) through five changes of state without making any adjustment to a hand - which would cause raised eyebrows if found in the work of a minor artist. This etching is a late one (1661), completed after the sale of his goods when he would have been deprived of the use of his cast collection.
Quality is a good indication in deciding whether Rembrandt had a hand in front of him as he drew. It is my belief that the superlative drawing that one often finds in a Rembrandt hand is due to his use of casts at leisure; without the fear of movement and pressure of time which are a part of the experience of drawing from life. I would urge particular attention to drawings of old male hands spread wide (such as those of Isaac in Pls.20b and 20e) and to the young female hands, slightly cupped as if around a ball, which we see in the Hagar & the Angel. Both gestures occur frequently and they are nearly always of breathtaking quality in observation and execution. I therefore hypothesise they were drawn from a cast after the model had departed.
Finally, in Rembrandt's collection there is his accumulation of theatrical properties: old clothes, musical instruments, military equipment; all these are mentioned in the inventory and their significance has been overlooked by modern scholarship. Baldinucci mentions them; Roger de Piles, writing in 1699, is explicit enough in telling us the use Rembrandt made of them: "he himself said that his art was the imitation of nature and, since this included everything, he collected ancient suits of armour, ancient musical instruments, old cloths and a multitude of ancient, embroidered clothes, and he used to say that they were his antiques." (Lecaldano, 1973, p.10) The relevance of this collection to my argument is obvious. Houbraken claims to have heard from many Rembrandt students that 'he would sketch a face in ten different ways before painting it on to canvas, or that he would spend a whole day or even two arranging the folds of a turban until he was satisfied.' (Lecaldano, 1973, p.12)
There are some other points of interest noted by Rembrandt's contemporaries but since ignored. There is frequent reference to Rembrandt's "keeping low company" Von Standrart says: "He had no idea of the importance of social rank and was forever rubbing shoulders with people of inferior class, which was detrimental to his work." (Lecaldano, 1973, p.8) These people were probably his models and I myself would regard them as essential to his work. Baldinucci says: "This painter belonged at the time to the Meninistic religion which, although a heretic sect, is nevertheless opposed to Calvanist doctrines; its members do not receive baptism until the age of thirty; they do not elect literate preachers but men of low class who are given the same honours as gentlemen and men of wisdom..." (Lecaldano, 1973,p.9)
These early records and commentaries provide some strong support for my evidence Von Sandrart comes tantalisingly close to telling us about the mirrors. He writes: "He also made skilful use of reflections by which means light could be made to penetrate areas of shadow." (Lecaldano, 1973, p.9) This passage has always been taken to refer to light reflected from light-toned objects (such as the open Bible in the portrait of his mother). It is more than likely that Von Sandrart refers to mirrors, which had a secondary use in reflecting more light on to a subject. The daylight available to Rembrandt was uncompromisingly directional: no room in his house had windows on more than one side and there do not appear to have been skylights or large north lights such as is customary in studios. It would be natural under such circumstances to try to bring in reflected light to 'fill' the shadows, in order to reveal the modelling. It is probable that mirrors were first made use of as 'light enhancers' - and only later used as 'subject multipliers'. The putative size of Rembrandt's mirrors is dealt with in the next chapter. It seems reasonable to deduce that he possessed at least three mirrors: two are mentioned in the 1656 inventory. But Rembrandt continued to paint self-portraits (which would of course have required a mirror of good quality) until his death in 1669.
In all the contemporary accounts I have found only one assertion which might be taken to be in conflict with my thesis. Houbraken, writing in 1718, asserts: "As an artist he was imaginative and that is why one often sees several sketches by him of the same subject." (Lecaldano, 1973, p.12) We may choose to decide that this means that the 'sketches' were actually made from Rembrandt's imagination. What Houbraken really meant is not entirely clear; he may simply have wished to say that Rembrandt's creativity often produced more than one solution to any particular problem. There is evidence from Houbraken himself to support this interpretation, in a later passage of this very text he writes:
"I know of no other artist who has introduced so many variations and so many different aspects of one and the same subject. This was the result of careful observation [my emphasis] of the various passions and these are recognisable in the facial expressions and in the attitudes of his characters".
Karel van Mander reports that Michelangelo da Caravaggio used to asserted that: “a painting, whatever its subject-matter and whoever its author, is a fatuous and a childish thing if it is not painted from nature: that there is nothing preferable to following nature: and for this reason he never attempted a single brush-stroke without a living model before his eyes. Our great Rembrandt was of the same opinion, and was indeed faithful to the principle that one must follow only nature: anything else was worthless in his eyes ... Rembrandt could never have been bound by rules dictated by others, nor could he have followed the example of other artists whose way of reproducing beauty has made them famous; he was content with imitating nature as he saw it and without any pedantry.” (Lecaldano, 1973, p.12)
It is curious that we have no direct account of Rembrandt's use of models and mirrors. His use of mirrors is by no means unique: it is part of the continuous tradition of European painting and it begins with Brunelleschi or van Eyck - possibly even with Giotto. It can be argued that such practices were so widespread that no-one thought them worthy of particular mention. I cannot believe that they were not common knowledge in Rembrandt's own lifetime. There is evidence that his students used mirrors occasionally. The size and quality of mirrors improved considerably in the 17th C as glass manufacture improved. In fact Amsterdam was the world leader during Rembrandt’s life-time.
Various remarks attributed to Rembrandt, his behaviour, his interests, his collection of bric-a-brac, jewellery, old clothes and theatrical properties, his fastidiousness in arranging a turban - all give evidence of a man indulging in a continuous visual feast; an artist who, like a stage or film director, deploys his actors as a part of his art, and from the scene he has created he selects his subject matter and point of view to maximise the emotional expression.
His 'keeping of low company' and his association with the Mennonites give us some indication of possible sources for his amateur models. He almost certainly also used professionals. Finally, the records and the judgements of his contemporaries proclaim that Rembrandt was taught by nature. All documentary signposts point in one direction; the 'scholars' have gone off on a 20th C tangent.
Until the last quarter of the 19th C the chief ambition of the ambitious artist was to become a “history painter”. That is to become an illustrator of the human interaction and visual expression at touching moments. This was certainly the case with Rembrandt's ambition. He persisted in that ambition his entire life although there was clearly little market for that form of art in Puritan Holland.
In my opinion it is his superlative achievement in that respect that marks him out as a uniquely special genius. It is surely he who laid the foundations for our interest in body-language and psychological expression. It is here that the experts' Humpty Dumpty effect on Rembrandt needs to be reversed. Eisenstein in the cinema and his followers in method acting are among the many who have acknowledged Rembrandt as their chief guru.
Critics of the late 19th C were right to draw our attention to other forms of art but in ridiculing sentiment as a means of expression they have done grave and lasting damage to art and the human condition. This could be rectified by a thorough reappraisal of what Rembrandt stood for and which works can reasonably be assumed to be his. I am in favour of a much greater Rembrandt even when masterly work includes inferior passages that were invented, which he himself would have designated as “worthless” because not observed from nature.
My approach owes a great deal to Brancusi. He has made us all more aware of the abstract element in art. I think it would be true to say that no artist can be considered even of the second rank without subscribing to a tradition of form. Form is a vital ingredient of art. Form is nature simplified so that the human mind can comprehend and manipulate it.
Rodin very seldom subscribed to the simple Greek idea of the head. He followed a different tradition of form that we might designate as Roman (see Chapter 2). It made its way into Europe following ancient Roman conquests. Many great artists have followed the Roman tradition, possibly subconsciously. Rodin would have received its influence not only from the Roman work that abounds in Europe but from many French devotees from Gothic times onwards – Clouet and Houdon were masters of the Roman tradition, and in his own time – the mature Degas, Lautrec and Van Gogh stand out as relying upon it. Today's art critics and historians need to become more aware of this second tradition of form, which is, if anything, more prevalent than the Greek tradition because it is much more useful for analysing the complexities of nature. Because the Greeks saw all heads as eggs, their heads inevitably lack individual character.
More important than form is the development of a sense of structure. Structure is the logic with which multiple forms are held together. In sculpture structure is usually to do with the way the building blocks defy gravity. In archaic figures, for instance, the structure is the same post and lintel architecture as the temples they adorned. Classical form is based on the simplified geometry of cylinders and cuboids which underlie Greek classical sculpture. Their structure is defined by what we all know of the human body – what it can do, and what it cannot do. This is the form that art historians more or less understand. But Rembrandt found that the classical Greek tradition had descended into a stale academicism, moreover, it was too crude spatially to deal with the subtle psychologically explicit space-relationships that animate his dramas. The documents of his life give ample testament to his determination “to be taught by nature and no other law.” (for the full story see The Documents of Rembrandt's Life)
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Rembrandt’s greatness as a draughtsman rests on his extension of the Roman tradition. Rembrandt studied the solid that was so exquisitely defined by the geometry of Holbein and the Romans and extended that geometry to include the intimate space that is so essential in reading psychological situations in the physical world. (See this video) Rembrandt not only owned 30 Roman portrait busts, he filled two books with studies of them! Alas, these books have been lost but clearly Roman portraits meant a lot to him. I came to Rembrandt studies through my interest in his drawing, fortunately unblinkered by the prejudiced stories of the experts.
If Rembrandt scholars could understand that this structuring of space is where Rembrandt’s greatness lies; we could return to the complete great master we once knew. Rembrandt’s style of “handwriting”, which so dominates Rembrandt studies today is quite irrelevant to his greatness. Added to which my Burlington Magazine article of Feb. 1977 demonstrated that their understanding of the development of Rembrandt’s style of handwriting is absurdly wide of the mark (See Hagar video). Forty years after my publication, instead of correction of those grave mistakes, we have the fantasies of the Getty catalogue Rembrandt and his Students, Telling the Difference (2009). A demonstration of the sad truth that the scholars still have no idea of how to distinguish a genuine Rembrandt drawing from his students. (See Hagar and the Angel or Fake Drawing Praised).
Panovski, an influential 20th C professor of art history, cautioned his students not to fall in love with the artists - the subject of their studies. This sounds like good advice but it has been taken so literally that there is no indication in the Getty catalogue that today's scholars have any idea why Rembrandt has been regarded with such awe by artists for so long and in spite of the absurd reduction in his accepted works.
Expert recalcitrance has deprived generations of artists of the true Rembrandt, clearly the greatest master of human expression, body-language, and much else. If our visual culture has any relevance this must be rectified by public outcry because my persistent badgering has proved inadequate to the task.
On the cover of the Getty catalogue we see two very similar drawings of Hendrijcke, Rembrandt's mistress posing to find the pose for his painted masterpiece Bathsheba in The Louvre. The similarities between the drawings include: same model, same pose, same paper and ink used very similarly, same size of figure on the page. These two drawings have been separated on the whim of Mr. Schatborn, recently of the Rijksprinttenkabinet. He has re-attributed the better drawing, which I regard as a defining master-work by Rembrandt, to a minor student (Arent de Gelder) See Getty article. This exhibition had the support of two cultural entities we should be able to trust but the exhibition was culture-crushing rather than “ground-breaking” as the catalogue suggests. Nothing in it deserved serious consideration, the sheer lack of common sense and the arrogance in relation to previous scholarship is breath-taking. Nothing in it can compare with what I have to say about “telling the difference”. (click here for complete discussion of the two drawings)
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Rembrandt's painting of a Wading Woman in The National Gallery (London) is a good example of his use of the Roman three dimensional geometry investigated in chapter 2. It allows an analysis which is clear and simple. The paint is put on very broadly. The fact that the original oak panel on which it is painted shines through in some places suggests that it was painted fairly quickly. This was probably the way the mature Rembrandt normally started a painting. But in this case the start was so engaging that there was no temptation to take the painting any further. It is a sketch and a masterpiece of spatial unity. One understands exactly where the elbows are, where her head is and just how much space there is between the neck-line of her shirt and her cleavage. This is a portrait of Hendrjike Stoffels, the last love of Rembrandt’s life. He conveys the warmth of sensual love perhaps more potently than any other artist without the slightest lasciviousness. His Bathsheba, painted from the same model is the only comparable work. Here the luscious paint remains in touch with the physical reality in spite of the bravura of the performance, nor does the bravura smack of egocentricity as it often does with lesser artists. One feels every stroke of the brush as a precise caress. It is rare for such alla prima painting not to carry the message “Am I not a master” but magically Rembrandt avoids this. I can only guess to what extent these qualities are dependent on the geometry I am about to describe. If the geometry helps one understand the particular quality of this sketch that is sufficient.
We can discern that the neck-line of the chemise as it passes over her shoulders creates an isosceles triangle laid diagonally in space. Her elbows and her knee creates a larger, identical triangle parallel to the first. The carpet hanging behind her and the point at which the reflection of her leg hits the edge of the canvas suggests a third triangle. I even feel the suggestion of a fourth that would span the space from her chin to the back of her head. It is just suggested but the suggestion allows us to feel the volume of her head more palpably.
We cannot know whether Rembrandt was consciously aware of the geometrical links he was creating. I am prepared to believe that Roman geometry communicated itself to him subconsciously. I would put it no stronger than that. The soul has a longing for structure, The arts offer structure, whether it be in music, in poetry or visually. We don’t have to understand it, or give it a name. We need to feel it and when we feel it, we are satisfied by it. What is certain is this painting exercises a special power over most viewers and it has a simple geometric structure that may help one to understand its fascination.
Roman geometry such as has been demonstrated in Chapter 2 has been used by many artists to define solid volumes. The Wading Woman shows how Rembrandt uses geometry to define space as well as solid. This is his contribution to the art of drawing and the secret of his success in conveying human feelings. He understood that we read drama or psychological relationships through the space relationships of the actors, where previous artist had relied upon gesture and facial expression, which help but are not central. We understand what is happening on stage from the last row of the balcony through the pose and the relation of the actors in space where the face is but a blur. Rembrandt collaborated with the theatre in Amsterdam on several occasions and clearly shared with them an interested in how sentiment is conveyed.
Raphael would make studies of individual figures and then collage the studies together to tell a story. Rembrandt insisted on creating groups so that he could savour the effect by experiment and then observe the space relationship between the actors as he drew them. This sensible procedure is denied by the scholars who want us to believe that genius had no need of physical models as reference. By believing this they miss the point that one of the most serious drives of the artist is to discover how feeling is conveyed – simply reproducing what one already knows does not lead to enthusiasm.
I discovered Rembrandt's use of live models and mirrors in 1974. With the help of Prof. Sir Ernst Gombrich's the discovery was published in The Burlington Magazine in Feb 1977. A further article was published in Dutch in Rembrandthuiskroniek (1978), with the much the same content. The Observer newspaper headed its article on my discovery The Rembrandt Revelation. It was an article that required a paradigm shift from Rembrandt the inventor to Rembrandt the observer - yet so far there has been no shift from the scholars regardless of the overwhelming evidence.
My guess is that one example of the discovery will suffice to persuade most people that Rembrandt placed models beside a mirror and drew both the models and their reflection. See this video. However, I can show nearly 100 examples of various ways in which Rembrandt used mirrors to multiply his subject matter. The mirror must have been a large reflective surface because it sometimes reflects as many as 7 people. Glass of that size (8 ft. wide) did not exist in Rembrandt's day so it must have been either made of polished metal or a composite of many smaller mirrors mounted together. This gave an inferior quality of stimulus and accounts for the fact that Rembrandt's drawings from reflections are almost always inferior to those observed direct from life. See this video.
There is a matter-of-fact quality about the drawings made from reflection that makes me feel that Rembrandt did them only because they might come in useful later. In fact it was very rare for him to work from drawings. Rembrandt needed life in front of him as a stimulus to give of his best as a painter or draughtsman. Today's scholars may not be aware that they have a strong prejudice against observation - a practical and until the beginning of the 20th C, a normal artist's behaviour. The experts want us to believe that Rembrandt's Biblical subjects were based on “an inner vision”. They were not (see my Burlington article Feb 1977).
Because Rembrandt's mirror drawings can often be linked securely to better drawings of the same subject drawn direct from life, they give us a new key with which to decide which drawings are genuinely his in spite of their dimmer quality. All agree that Rembrandt was a very variable artist, the experts talk jokingly of Rembrandt's “Monday mornings”. I am suggesting something different and more permanent: we should take his contemporaries word for it. Rembrandt like many artists was an observer who disdained to invent See this video . His contemporary, Houbraken, reports that Rembrandt believed “one should let oneself be taught by nature, ... anything else was worthless in his eyes.” There are many examples among his drawings that seem to be deliberately telling us that parts of the drawing were “worthless” because they were not observed from nature.
The best instance of this is a masterpiece in The Louvre of Isaac Refusing to Bless Esau. The Isaac is Rembrandt at his very best. Isaac has all the qualities of the feebleness of old age propped up by pillows, his blindness and fatalism are wonderfully apparent. But the body of Esau is “worthless” by comparison, it has none of the sense of physicality we find in Isaac (I explain how this came about on YouTube linked above). Esau was there but on the other side of the bed. Rembrandt saw his head and shoulders but not his body. This is a useful example because it shows us the great Rembrandt and the lesser Rembrandt on one sheet. If the scholars could take this on board we could enjoy and learn from many more works by the master (approx 2,200 drawings). I regard this as an important masterpiece in spite of the lesser quality of Esau because of the astounding quality of Isaac. The scholars have not considered this drawing since 1922 when it was deattributed. Rembrandt here demonstrates his preparedness to do “worthless” drawing perhaps on principle.
There is one other subtlety in this drawing I will not mention because if you see it you will recognise it. Then be assured you would make an excellent scholar of The New School of Rembrandt studies.
Another example of the same drop in quality resulting from no models is a drawing of Jupiter with Philemon and Baucis where Rembrandt appears to be making a genuine attempt to illustrate a story, but without the live group in front of him. The result is very unlike his normal work. We know it must be his because, realising his failure as an illustrator, he has written the story on the page. Therefore, no one can doubt the drawing is one of his though it is of very disappointing quality, his usual spatial clarity is entirely lacking and the figures poorly realised. This drawing is nonetheless important because of what it tells us of Rembrandt's character as an artist: his inability to invent.
Rembrandt's need of a reference in the outside world as a stimulus is not unusual among artists but in Rembrandt's case the gap in quality between observed and imagined/invented is unusually great because of the outstanding quality of his observation and perhaps his need to demonstrate to his students that invention was not recommended. At Harvard, in an attempt to shoot down my explanation of Rembrandt's attitude a questioner claimed “In the 17th C they did not need still lives in front of them” when I asked him how he had come to such an idea he answered “they often painted flowers in one vase that were not in season together” NK “Flowers wilt, flower painters pick their blooms one at a time” - General consternation among the scholars! This shows how scholars will find reasons, however absurd, to show how in the olden days artists were so well trained they had no need of models or flowers to work from!
Unfortunately, my discoveries invalidate most of the last 100 years of Rembrandt scholarship. It is easy for me to convert the unprejudiced observer but I have not won over any Rembrandt specialists nor any of their senior students. They refuse to even talk to me. I was once invited to participate in a symposium on Rembrandt in Leiden. My supporters felt I had won hands down; I have never been invited since. Not quite true; I made so many points as a paying member of the audience at a symposium at the Wallace collection that the head curator was more or less obliged to offer me a chance to make my whole case as a lecturer. An event to which none of the established scholars came.
This matters because Rembrandt's work has steadily been eroded by the scholars who misunderstand him entirely. Furthermore, their judgement is so poor that they have dismissed many flawed masterpieces in spite of the true greatness they contain (as in Isaac and Esau above).
They have built a creative personality for Rembrandt which is contradicted by his own statements and by those who knew him. They want him to be an inventor where we are told over and over that “he would not attempt a single brush-stroke without a living model before his eyes” That is he relied on drawing or painting from observation of life. This would account for why he painted so many self-portraits: as his mirror image was always available when models were not. This reliance on observation is contrary to modern beliefs about art. Today's experts believe that great artists did not need models. They have cut down Rembrandt to make him conform to their mistaken beliefs – their beliefs are contradicted by a mass of evidence in The Documents and in the works themselves.
This matters to artists because Rembrandt is the old master who has most to teach observers today. As a student of art in the 1950's I was probably in the majority in believing this. Now because of the doubts that have been created by scholars, students no longer look to him for guidance. They cannot be sure whether they are looking at a Rembrandt or a minor student. In my opinion art has gone off the rails mainly because of this unjustified down-grading of Rembrandt, both his work and his philosophy. He was a magnificent signpost to artists that has been all but destroyed by recent scholarship.
When I spoke of my discovery at Harvard, the world centre of Rembrandt studies in 1978, I was received with the utmost hostility and no scholar has taken the slightest notice since. The scholars have rejected evidence that more scientific thinkers have accepted not simply as theory but as fact. My efforts to make the debate more public have been successfully thwarted. The scholars are not to be trusted with our cultural inheritance.
The chances are that if you have been a student of Rembrandt in a department of art history since 1977 you have been misguided away from Konstam's view as unworthy of debate. For those who dare to challenge their teachers on Rembrandt as observer rather than an imaginative inventor here are some pointed questions to ask.