Work Of Rembrandt Research Articles

Sheldon Peck (1941-2021) Secretary of the EHASO, 1995-2009.

Sheldon Peck (1941-2021) Secretary of the EHASO, 1995-2009.

Rembrandt's Old Woman Praying, 1629/30: A look below the surface using X‐ray fluorescence mapping

Rembrandt's painting Old Woman Praying, 1629/30, is the most valuable and exceptional work of art of the Residenzgalerie Salzburg (RGS). It is painted on a gilded copper plate with dimensions of only approximately 15 × 12 cm. The painting probably belongs to a series of three small‐scale tronies, all executed on gilded copper plates. This particular picture preparation, which represents a special feature in Rembrandt's work, is quite unusual in the history of art.Previous investigations on the comparable paintings The Laughing Man, 1629/30, in the Mauritshuis, The Hague and the Self Portrait, 1630, in the National Museum, Stockholm showed that the gilding of the copper plate was applied over a lead white ground.To characterize the painting in the RGS, X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) mapping was performed in a collaboration between the Research Office Residenzgalerie, Land Salzburg, the XGLab S.R.L, Milan, and the Conservation Science Department of the Kunsthistorische Museum Vienna (KHM). The results indicate a different structure for this painting than that used for The Laughing Man and the Self Portrait. The gilding was applied directly onto the copper plate, but with three areas with the gilding missing. It seems likely that in these sections, the gold was purposely removed to provide a different darker effect.XRF mapping yielded valuable insights into the structure of the painting and its technique as well as the principal pigments used for its composition.

On the Expression of Emotions in Rembrandt’s Art

Rembrandt has been characterized as "the master of the passions of the soul". His painting production has always elicited the viewers' strong emotional responses. Τhese responses raise the question regarding why Rembrandt's work has been singled out as the quintessential example of the expression of emotions both during the 17th century, as well as in recent times. I will try to approach the issue through two different yet interconnected routes. First, I will explore the tools and terms through which the question of the expression of emotions in Rembrandt's oeuvre can be approached. Ancient rhetorical topoi, as well as ideas stemming from Dutch theater writers, drama and art theorists, scholars and art connoisseurs on the rendition of the emotions provide useful points of view. Secondly, I will approach the question by addressing certain stylistic and compositional solutions that Rembrandt suggested, which can be tied to current notions about lifelikeness and the beholder's empathy. Foremost among Rembrandt's aesthetic choices was his handling of light and of paint which accounts for a great deal of unfavorable criticism to his work during the 17th century. I would like to suggest that this handling of light and paint serves as Rembrandt's most important emotive vehicle and furthermore that it introduces us to the idea of wonder and the concept of the sublime in terms of which his depiction of emotions may be understood. Accordingly, I will try to establish an intellectual network in the 17th-century Netherlands for the sublime.

THE RETURN TO THE VISUAL IN THEOLOGICAL THINKING / VIZUALUMO TEOLOGINIAME MĄSTYME ATGALIOS LINK

Theological thinking has shifted radically in the past half century as we shift back from a primarily textual and verbal culture to one which is heavily reliant on the immediacy of the visual. This, though rooted in ancient practice, has begun to change the patterns of theological thinking and the nature of the appropriation of doctrine and thence our practice of worship and liturgy. The shift actually has its origins in the changes that took place in the understanding of the visual arts after the Reformation, and therefore this essay will begin with a brief reflection on the work of Rembrandt and link this to contemporary art and theology at the present time. Teologinis mąstymas radikaliai pakito XX a. antrojoje pusėje, perėjus nuo tekstualiosios ir žodinės kultūros link tos, kuri iš esmės priklausoma nuo vaizdo betarpiškumo. Nors vizualumas yra giliai įsišaknijęs senovės praktikose, tačiau jis ėmė keisti teologinio mąstymo modelius ir doktrinos įsisavinimo pobūdį, o kartu ir garbinimo bei liturgijos praktikas. Iš tikrųjų šį perėjimą sukėlė po Reformacijos vaizduojamųjų menų sampratoje įvykę pokyčiai. Todėl šią apžvalgą pradėsime glaustai aptardami Rembrandto paveikslą ir jo sąsają su šiuolaikiniu menu ir nūdiene teologija.

Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Stories of Healing

Two contemporary patient narratives provide an opportunity to reflect on the role of clinicians in the healing process, as seen in the works of Rembrandt and Michelangelo.

Reading Rembrandt: The influence of Cartesian dualism on Dutch art

In this essay, I aim to identify and analyze the influence of Cartesian dualism on Rembrandt's pictorial representations of the self. My thesis is that Descartes and Rembrandt share concerns about philosophy's exploration of human nature, concerns rooted in mind–body dualism. Descartes's corpus bears witness to a growing skepticism about the relation between matter and extension. Likewise, Rembrandt's anatomy lessons lead the viewer to question the value of treating humans as scientific objects. I suggest that by reexamining Rembrandt's work in light of the mind–body problem we generate a fuller understanding of Rembrandt's artistic critique and expression and Descartes's mature scientific thinking and abiding influence. My analysis centers on four Rembrandt paintings: The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Nicolaes Tulp (1632); The Descent from the Cross (1632–1633); The Sacrifice of Abraham (1635); and The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Joan Deyman (1656).

La Visitazione di Rembrandt già a Torino. Una rilettura critica

The article discusses Rembrandt's painting, The Visitation, dated 1640, now preserved in the Detroit Institute of Arts, USA. Initially The Visitation was a part of Prince Eugene of Savoy's collection which reached the royal court of Turin in 1741. During the French rule in Italy the painting was transferred to France and, even after the Restoration, it was not returned to Piedmont anymore. Later, the Rembrandt's work passed into the art trade and finally reached the Detroit Institute of Arts, at that time led by W. Valentiner, an eminent scholar of Rembrandt. The painting is analysed in relation to the evangelical text which inspired it; then it is compared with the iconographic models of the tradition in which Rembrandt worked. The iconographic sources of the painter's inspiration were Durer, Heemskerck, as well as Rubens. The essay focuses on various iconographic and symbolic elements which are present in the sacred scene. The work was created near the stylistic turning-point in Rembrandt's career which is to be placed in the 1640s. Differing from the magniloquence of the contemporary Baroque paintings (culminating with The Night Watch), the little tablet is part of a series of a few paintings of religious and inspiration and landscape. It is small in size, sending forth an intense evocative sense of moving humanity; but it does not hold back from the constructive formulas deriving from the contemporary theatre. The difference is also attested to by some drawings of Visitation that Rembrandt had conceived in connection with the analysed work. The final part of the essay deals with the problem of the destination and purchaser of the small and fine painting. As we do not have any documentation, a notion - supported by indirect hints - is proposed, that the painting was commissioned by a Catholic patron (considering the uniqueness of the treated subject), with the purpose of placing it in his small cabinet d'amateur. This indication is strengthened by the esteem of many Catholic sources of Rembrandt's art.

The Art of Teaching in the Museum

A class is studying a small painting by Rembrandt in the galleries of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The museum educator has been inviting the assembled visitors to look ever more closely, guiding the class toward an understanding both of the painting itself and of our reasons for studying it. The class has been anything but passiveindeed, it has been lively. The painting is The Abduction of Europa (1632), a picture that depicts in delicate detail a story from Greek mythology, the kidnapping of the Phoenician princess Europa by Zeus in the guise of a white bull. The visitors have shared their observations, speculations, ideas. As the class concludes, the museum educator asks the participants to speculate on the painting's larger meaning, to say what they think this work is, finally, about, as revealed by their long discussion. The group's experience has clearly moved beyond the telling of a single story. One participant suggests that Rembrandt's work is about the fearlessness of traveling into the unknown. Another says that it concerns the story of the soul's leaving the earthly for the heavenly realm. When the class comes to an end, people move closer to the painting and continue their discussions. In the same museum, another museum educator is also conducting a group of students through the galleries. He begins with a Roman statue of Venus, followed by an eighteenth-century French terra-cotta bust of Madame Recamier by Joseph Chinard. For each sculpture, he asks the students to focus on only one detail, the hands. The students are encouraged to observe and take note of the sculpted figures' gestures, much as if they were studying a person. Time seems to slow as perception sharpens. The educator listens patiently as the students begin to read the sculptures as a whole through the expressiveness of the hands. The group moves on to a mysterious portrait by Millet in which the students discuss the nature of love, and

Anna Seghers: The Mythic Dimension by Helen Fehervary, and: Auf stand der Fischer von St. Barbara by Anna Seghers (review)

542 Reviews personal and the public, and the process of their overcoming. Elizabeth Boa looks at the eulogistic mode in poems easily dismissed as propagandistic and therefore, in view of the Wende and the collapse of Communism, as dated. Anthony Phelan offers a perspective on the drafts of Brecht's poetic version of the Communist Manifesto which allows a consideration of its relation to Lucretius, Marx and Engels, and the progress of World War II. David Constantine shows the dark side of Brecht in the pornographic sonnets, but places it in the context of his utopian provocativeness. Ray Ockenden on 'Der Schuh des Empedokles' presents the range of Verfremdungseffekte in the title poem, exile poems, and the Buckower Elegien, after the term had become a feature of his theoretical writings in the thirties. Erdmut Wizisla examines 'Kinderhymne' as a riposte to Hoffmann von Fallersleben's 'Lied der Deutschen' and compares it also with Becher's 'Auferstanden aus Ruinen'. Karen Leeder discusses the reception of the poetry in English, with reference to Seamus Heaney, Adrian Henri, Naomi Replansky, Keith Armstrong, Michael Hamburger, Adrian Mitchell, Tom Paulin, Christopher Logue, Andy Croft, and Derek Mahon, in the context of extensive quotation from their work, which includes translations. All the authors combine close readings of single poems with overviews of forms based on a wide cultural awareness ofpast and present. They fulfilthe editors' promise that the book is 'a jovial disputation about a legacy and its reception, about the po? tential for a productive rereading of Brecht's poems in another century'. Appearing under the imprint of the publisher of the standard translation of most of Brecht's works, the volume clearly aims at a readership beyond the Brecht research community. It pays throughout particular attention to problems of translation and to the changing political context of the oeuvre both in its creation and in its reception. St Andrews Malcolm Humble Anna Seghers: The Mythic Dimension. By Helen Fehervary. (Social History, Popu? lar Culture, and Politics in Germany) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 2001. xi + 275pp. $52.50; ?37.50. ISBN 0-472-11215-5 (hbk). Aufstand der Fischer von St. Barbara. By Anna Seghers. Ed. by Helen Fehervary withJenniferWilliams. (Werkausgabe:DaserzahlerischeWerk,i/i.i). Berlin: Aufbau. 2002. 171pp. ?22.50. ISBN 3-351-03451-2 (hbk). Helen Fehervary's stimulating monograph adds a number of strikingly original per? spectives to the current reassessment of Anna Seghers's work. In addition to offering instructive insights into Seghers's relationship with Brecht and Benjamin, the book is the firstin any language to situate Seghers firmlywithin the context of Central and East Central European intellectual history. It demonstrates in particular the depth and extent of her lifelong indebtedness to the ideas ofthe young Georg Lukacs and the Budapest Sunday Circle. Fehervary' s knowledge of Hungarian enables her to evaluate archival and published material which is as little known as it is important and leads her to the crucial discovery that certain key words which are vital to an understanding of the ceuvre are phonetic transcriptions fromthe Hungarian (for instance, the associ? ation of Djal, in Seghers's 'Die Toten auf der Insel Djal' (1924), with the Hungarian root gyal opens up a fascinating line of interpretation linking the story to the expe? riences ofthe Sunday Circle). No less illuminating is her contention that Seghers is 'the quintessential pictorial writer' (p. 13). Of crucial importance here is Seghers's doctoral dissertation, an early testimony to her enduring fascination with the work of Rembrandt and the Dutch landscape painters whose influence is especially evident in the land-, sea-, and skyscapes characteristic of her work. In addition to identifying numerous images which Seghers derived fromthe Dutch masters' studies ofeveryday MLRy 99.2, 2004 543 life, Fehervary sees a close correspondence between features of Seghers's prose and Rembrandt's drawing style. In the early short story 'Grubetsch' (1927), forexample, which so impressed Hans Henny Jahnn when he nominated the virtually unknown writer for the prestigious Kleist Prize in 1928, the influence of Rembrandt's various depictions of the supper at Emmaus is so palpable that it is 'as if Seghers had been looking at these depictions while...

Anna Seghers: The Mythic Dimension

Fehervary Helen. Anna Seghers: The Dimension. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2001. 275 pp. $52.50 hardcover. Helen Fehervary's monograph substantially complicates future readings and interpretations of writings of Anna Seghers. That is not least of its merits. For while Seghers's work continues to be explored in lively Argonautenschiff (The Anna Seghers Yearbook) and elsewhere, a number of simplistic assumptions about her survive. Foremost among these is notion of Seghers's faith, both political and religious. Seghers's adherence to communism, according to decades' old cliches, is supposed to have been an act of (rather than reason). Seghers's attitude toward her Judaism, according to more recent debates, was one of rejection and denial. Rather than arguing for one side or other of these polarizing assumptions, Fehervary chooses to investigate. Her investigation reveals Seghers's faith as constituted by complex notions of messianism, chiliasm, and mysticism dating back to first century Jewish-Christian community in Palestine and language of its chronicles. These concepts often form well disguised subtext in genres of fable, legend, folk and fairy tales favored by Seghers. All of which marks Mythic Dimension in Seghers's work that is subject of Fehervary's monograph. Fehervary's investigation starts in Heidelberg where Seghers studied art history, spending much time on old Dutch masters and receiving a doctorate for her thesis on Jews and Judaism in works of Rembrandt. Fehervary's detailed analysis, in first three chapters of her book, reveals extent to which Seghers was influenced by the iconography and scenic composition characteristic of landscapes (42) in these paintings. Fehervary's main point here is that these were paintings of crucifixion landscapes and other biblical scenes. Her close reading of a scene from Grubetsch, for example, shows that it reenacts Christ's Dinner at Emmaus not as rendered in Bible, but rather in paintings and etchings by Rembrandt. The messianic aspects of figures such as Grubetsch (or Hull, in The Revolt of Fishermen) are shown to be constructed from visual codes created long after biblical events to which they refer. Seghers's messianism is mediated through Rembrandt's (a devout Christian's) vision of early first-century Christian communities (formed by Jews). Fehervary's layered deciphering of Rembrandt's influence reveals central role Jews play in Seghers's mythical thinking, though, in complex world of Anna Seghers these are Christianized Jews. While this will not end debate over Seghers's attitude toward (her) Judaism, it will add to its complexity. The other main influence on young Seghers in Heidelberg came from her fellow student and future husband Laszlo Radvanyi who at time was writing his dissertation on Understanding of Chiliastic Idea and Chiliastic Action (73). Fehervary's exploration of Radvanyi's background-about which little was known until now-leads her to focus, in chapters 4 through 6, on Hungarian connection in Seghers's life and work. …

The Ruins of Rembrandt

Who would dare to defend the ‘Romantic myth’ that Rembrandt's Nightwatch caused a scandal in its time? I would. Beginning with Alexander Korda's film Rembrandt, I argue that Romantic accounts are historically more accurate and aesthetically more sophisticated than current explanations, and more relevant, since they can accommodate our own relation to Rembrandt's art. Romantic constructions can also be traced back to Rembrandt's innovations. Conversely, confusion about Rembrandt's autograph oeuvre results from the efforts and investments of later commentators, not Rembrandt. Drawing on the work of Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, and Aloïs Riegl, I propose that Rembrandt's works can be understood as ‘ruins,’ or historical phenomena of artistic significance to our time, understood belatedly, in an ongoing, imperfect process.These issues are directly relevant to reception studies. In my view, the meaning of Rembrandt's work does not necessarily reside in the perspective of his contemporaries, whereas other forms of reception, such as later commentaries or popular consumption and commercial use of his art, offer insights inaccessible to current scholarship. Indeed, art historical scholarship is itself reception, the unfolding of the meaning of historical art in the present. Instead of limiting the work to its ostensible historical function, our task should be to understand how the work makes possible our present concepts of art and art history, which we must continue (philosophically) to rethink and to refine.

Rembrandt the printmaker

In his printmaking, Rembrandt covered the full range of styles and subjects for which he is celebrated, including self-portraits, scenes from the Bible, vignettes of every day, and character studies. Rembrandt was famously experimental, and often reworked his copper plates to improve and extend their expressive power. This work, published to coincide with a major exhibition at the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) and British Museum (London), aims to illustrate a selection of his finest prints. New areas of research have made it possible to follow the progress of Rembrandt's work on each plate, revealing details of his habit of revising the images at various times throughout his life.

Origins and Meanings of Rembrandt's Late Drawing Style

By examining Rembrandt's Homer Reciting Verses and other completed gift drawings, this study shows the origins of his late drawing style in established graphic traditions. The sheets in question demonstrate a fundamental principle underlying Rembrandt's work: that even completed drawings should reveal the process of creation. The rough, unornamented manner that he developed to express this axiom, although departing from most graphic conventions canonized in art literature, was nevertheless grounded in contemporary Dutch thought. Analogues discovered in rhetoric, preaching, and philosophy suggest that in its time Rembrandt's late drawing style was considered humble, spiritual, and truthful.

Looking at Rembrandt: the view from Amsterdam, Berlin and London

Mounting the same art exhibition in three internationally recognized museums can have surprising results. The exhibition of the works of Rembrandt and his pupils drew different responses from visitors in Amsterdam, London and Berlin, and reflected the distinctive approaches of the three museum curators.

Reading Rembrandt: beyond the word-image opposition: the Northrop Frye lectures in literary theory

Reading Rembrandt: Beyond the Word Image Opposition explores the potential for interdisciplinary methodology between literature and visual art. In a series of close analyses of works by Rembrandt-works whose attribution is still challenged, but can still be considered within the context of this study-and texts related to those works, Mieke Bal questions the traditional boundaries between literary and visual analysis. Bal also studies Rembrandt's complex handling of gender and the representation of women in Rembrandt's painting. Although Reading Rembrandt's methods originate outside the history of art, it demonstrates nonetheless the author's sensitivity to the visual aspect of Rembrandt's work. The works by Rembrandt gain in depth and interest, but an original perspective of the role of visuality in our culture emerges, which ultimately has consequences for our views of gender, the artist, and the act of reading.

If Not Rembrandt, Then His Cousin?

A number of paintings formerly attributed to Rembrandt, including such famous works as Saul and David and The Man in a Helmet, seem to form a stylistically distinct group that was executed by another hand. Although the author of these canvases cannot be established with certainty, several of them have striking affinities in handling and subject matter with the work of Rembrandt's cousin and pupil, Karel van der Pluym.

The Earliest Dated Painting by Nicolaes Maes

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ago, in the course of a long article on the story of the dismissal of Hagar in the work of Rembrandt and his pupils, Richard Hamann published a painting of the subject by Nicolaes Maes.' Not having seen the original, Hamann confined himself to a brief discussion of the composition and of related drawings; his information about the location of the picture was mistaken, and he made no note of a signature or a date. Even from Hamann's poor reproduction it was evident that the painting was one of considerable strength and originality, and that if the attribution to

Remarks on the Exhibition of the Etched Work of Rembrandt at the Burlington Fine Arts’ Club, in 1877

Remarks on the Exhibition of the Etched Work of Rembrandt at the Burlington Fine Arts’ Club, in 1877