Great Masters in Painting: Rembrandt van Rijn Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Ca.s.sel_

PORTRAIT OF JAN HERMAN KRUL

(1633)]

There are thirteen other signed portraits of that year, including one of "Jan Herman Krul," at Ca.s.sel [No. 213], two of "Saskia"--one at Dresden [No. 1556]; one, called however, "Lysbeth van Rijn," which belonged to the late Baroness Hirsch-Gereuth--and two of himself, one, the oval portrait in the Louvre [No. 412], and the other in the collection of M.

Warneck at Paris. Out of these twelve signatures, only one is the monogram R.H.L., the other eleven being signed with the full name, and from only one of these, "A Head of a Girl," in the collection of Prince Jousoupoff, is the d missing.

Three subject-pictures also belong to that year, in all probability; "An Entombment," in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow; a small picture described as "Pet.i.tioners to a Biblical Prince," belonging to M. Leon Bonnat of Paris; and "A Philosopher in Meditation" [No. 2541], in the Louvre. The last, indeed, though undated, may almost certainly be attributed to that year, since its companion, another "Philosopher in Meditation," also in the Louvre [No. 2540], is signed R. van Rijn, 1631. But the great event of the year must have been the patronage which came to him from Prince Frederick-Henry, resulting in the purchase of two pictures, both of which, in later years, after pa.s.sing to the gallery at Dusseldorf, were transferred to Munich.

In both we see Rembrandt at his most characteristic--his determination to tell his story clearly, to concentrate his light upon the chief figure, the keynote of his theme, to get the true and expressive actions of his personages, not even yet free of some exaggeration, without troubling a jot as to the minor detail of correct costume. So, in the first, "The Elevation of the Cross" [No. 327], the cross, with the tense figure wrung with anguish, slants right athwart the picture, and stands out against the murky sky and dim surrounding crowds with startling incisiveness. So the four men occupied in raising it display an almost pa.s.sionate energy; so a soldier wears a more or less cla.s.sical helmet and breastplate over a sleeved doublet unknown to Rome; a man behind is dressed in the peasant's ordinary garb of Rembrandt's day; and another, wearing a doublet and soft flat cap, seems to be Rembrandt's self; while the centurion on horseback superintending the carrying out of the sentence is a frank Turk as to his headgear, a nondescript for the rest of him. The other, "The Descent from the Cross" [No. 326], while displaying many of the same qualities, merits and defects alike, is more deliberately composed, suffers indeed from that over-composition already noticed, being too obviously built up into that high pyramidal form, which we found in "The Presentation in the Temple." There is, nevertheless, a very delicate sentiment of pathos in it, and that Rembrandt himself was content with it, is shown not only by his correspondence with Huygens on the subject, but by the fact that he repeated it on a larger scale during the following year. Yet so curiously capricious was he in adding or withholding date and signature that neither has a date, and only "The Descent from the Cross" is inscribed with what appears to be C. Rlembrant f.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Munich Gallery_

THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS

(1633)]

CHAPTER VI

TIME OF PROSPERITY (1634-1642)

At the one hundred and twenty-nine pictures produced during the succeeding nine years I can only glance hastily. There are eighteen works dated 1634, and, no less than seven of them are, or are called, "Portraits of Himself." One at the Louvre [No. 2553], and two at Berlin [Nos. 808 and 810], are unmistakably so, and one now in America, a companion to a "Portrait of Saskia," would seem to be; but the "Portrait of Rembrandt as an Officer," at the Hague [No. 149], which, however, bears no date, and one in a helmet, at Ca.s.sel [No. 215], bear only the most general resemblance to him. He furthermore painted a portrait of "Saskia disguised as Flora," called "The Jewish Bride," in the Hermitage at St Petersburg [No. 812], a very similar picture in the collection of M. Schloss, Paris, and a third at Ca.s.sel [No. 214]. There are eight dated portraits, and one probably belonging to that year. Among the portraits are the pair to the one of "Dr Tulp," and two other pairs, "Martin Daey" and "Machteld van Doorn," his wife, belonging to Baron Gustave de Rothschild, and "The Minister Alenson" and "His Wife,"

belonging to M. Schneider, Paris, a "Portrait of Himself in a Cuira.s.s,"

in the Wallace collection, one of "A Young Girl," at Bridgewater House, and the "Old Lady," in the National Gallery [No. 775]. There are also four subjects. A replica of "The Descent from the Cross," formerly in the Ca.s.sel Gallery, but removed by Napoleon I. to Malmaison, whence it pa.s.sed to the Hermitage [No. 800]. It is of interest historically as showing that high as Rembrandt's reputation stood at the time, he had leisure enough to paint this large picture, without any immediate purchaser in prospect, and it remained in fact on his hands until the enforced sale in 1656. A second, also in the Hermitage [No. 801], is "The Incredulity of St Thomas," and a third, in the Prado at Madrid [No.

1544], has been called both "Queen Artemisia receiving the Ashes of Mausolus" and "Cleopatra at her Toilet." There is also a doubtful "Tobias restoring his Father's Sight," in the collection of Duc d'Arenberg at Brussels, but it is a matter of doubt whether the last figure of the date is 4 or 6. Lastly, there is an undated "Prodigal Son," belonging to the executors of the late Sir F. Cook, which, in spite of the signature, must also be regarded as dubious.

There are only two "Portraits of Himself" dated 1635, and one of "Saskia," but there are two others attributed to about that time, and, in addition, two large and highly finished pictures, supposed to represent "Rembrandt and Saskia," both signed Rembrandt, and believed to have been painted in or near that year. The one at Dresden [No. 1559], contains, without doubt, portraits of the painter and his wife (_see_ ill.u.s.tration, p. 24). The other, at Buckingham Palace, long known as "The Burgomaster Pancras and his Wife," is less certain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_National Gallery, London_

PORTRAIT OF AN OLD WOMAN

(1634)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Buckingham Palace_

THE BURGOMASTER PANCRAS AND HIS WIFE

(ABOUT 1635)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_National Gallery, London_

PORTRAIT OF A MAN

(1635)]

Apart from these, there are nine dated portraits, and five subject-pictures, together with six portraits and one subject of about the date. Only two of the portraits bearing dates are in public galleries, one "A Rabbi," at Hampton Court [No. 381], and one "A Man,"

in the National Gallery [No. 350], while two others of about the date are the "Portrait of Himself," in the Pitti [No. 60], and "A Young Woman," at Ca.s.sel [No. 216]. In subjects the artist on two occasions went out of his way to court failure in attempting to represent cla.s.sical subjects, with the spirit of which he was utterly out of sympathy. The homely truthfulness of his art, though it may occasionally result in details somewhat shocking to the reverent mind, was, nevertheless, well adapted to set forth the humanising side of Scripture incidents. His Christ is always more the Son of Man than the G.o.d Incarnate. His Virgin Mary has none of the delicate beauty conceived for her by Italian painters, but she is first of all, and beyond all, the type of motherhood. His apostles have none of the heroic dignity of Michael Angelo's, yet they are without question devout, devoted fishers of men. But this lack of wish or power to idealise, this persistence in the search for the true and neglect of the beautiful, is entirely at variance with the cla.s.sical tradition. There are no great fundamental ideas beneath the story of "Actaeon, Diana, and Callisto," or "The Rape of Ganymede," for the artist to bring home to us, and the representation of the former as coa.r.s.e, ungainly peasants, as in the picture belonging to Prince Salm-Salm of Anholt, or of the latter as a fat and extremely hideous baby boy blubbering in terror as he is howked upwards--no more dignified phrase will express it--by his s.h.i.+rt-tail in the claws of an eagle, as in the picture at Dresden [No. 1558], serve only to reveal the limitations of the artist's imagination without disguise or compensation.

Three other subject pictures, painted in or about that year, are also in public galleries: a little sketch of "The Flight into Egypt," at the Hague [No. 579]; "The Sacrifice of Abraham," in the Hermitage [No. 792]; and "Samson threatening his Father-in-law," at Berlin [No. 802].

Seven pictures only bear the date 1636, of which one formed a further addition to the collection of Prince Frederick-Henry,--"The Ascension,"

now at Munich [No. 328], quite the least satisfactory of the series.

Rembrandt, indeed, was not in a happy vein this year in his treatment of subjects. Both the "Samson overpowered by the Philistines," in the collection of Count Schonborn at Vienna, and Lord Derby's "Belshazzar's Feast," if it be Rembrandt's, which, though unsigned, is attributed to that year, are seriously marred by a distinct melodramatic element in the conception, an extreme exaggeration of pose, gesture, and expression. On the other hand, we find the most pleasing study of the nude the painter ever made, in the "Danae," at the Hermitage [No. 802], which, though the first and third figures of the date have disappeared, leaving only two sixes, was most probably painted that year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_The Hermitage_

DANAE

(1636)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna_

PORTRAIT OF A MAN

(1636)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna_

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

(1636)]

The four remaining pictures are portraits; two, forming a pair, a young man and his wife, belonging to Prince Liechtenstein of Vienna; one, a woman, to Mr Byers, Pittsburg, U.S.A.; and also a woman, to Lord Kinnaird. The "Ecce h.o.m.o," in the National Gallery [No. 1400], must have also been painted that year, if not before, for it is a sketch for the etching of that date. Other pictures probably dating from that year are a "Standard Bearer," belonging to Baron Gustave de Rothschild, from which the last figure of the date is missing; a "Portrait of an Old Lady," belonging to the Earl of Yarborough; "A Saint," formerly in the collection of Earl Dudley; "Saint Paul," at Vienna; and the "Portrait of an Oriental," in the Hermitage [No. 813].

1637 is inscribed on eight pictures, but in one case, that of a "Portrait of Himself," belonging to Captain Heywood-Lonsdale, there is some doubt about the correct reading of the last figure, and in that of "Susannah and the Elders," in the collection of Prince Jousoupoff, the genuineness of the signature is not above suspicion. No such question, however, applies to the rendering of the same subject at the Hague [No.

147], the "Portrait of Himself," in the Louvre [No. 2554], the "Portrait of Henry Swalm," at Antwerp [No. 705], that of another "Minister" at Bridgewater House, or to the "Portrait of a Man," in the Hermitage [No.

811], once absurdly called "Sobieski," and now, with scarcely less absurdity, said to be Rembrandt. The remaining work is "The Parable of the Master of the Vineyard," also in the Hermitage [No. 798]. Two portraits, one of himself, belonging to Lord Ashburton, and one of a "Young Woman" lacing her bodice, belonging to Dr Bredius, are also attributed to that year, as is "The Angel quitting Tobit," in the Louvre [No. 2536], in which once more Rembrandt's desire for actuality has, as far as the angel is concerned, led him to the border-line between the ungraceful and the ridiculous.

In the following year we find him for the first time attempting pure landscape. One, signed and dated, an entirely imaginary composition, is in the possession of Herr Georg Rath at Buda-Pesth; another, also signed and dated, in which he has to some extent compromised by introducing some small figures ill.u.s.trating the "Parable of the Good Samaritan," is in the Czartoryski Museum at Cracow. "Christ and Mary Magdalene at the Tomb," in Buckingham Palace, though the figures are made of more importance, may also be included in the transition pictures between landscape and subject, for the garden, tomb, and distant city are at least as much insisted on as the figures. The important picture of the year, however, was a figure subject, "Samson propounding his Riddle to the Philistines," the great canvas in the Dresden Gallery [No. 1560], a magnificent piece of work, but, apart from its technical qualities, of no great interest: the only other pictures dated 1638 being a "Portrait of an Old Man," in the Louvre [No. 2544], and a "Bust of a Man in Armour," at Brunswick [No. 237].

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Hermitage, St. Petersburg_

PORTRAIT CALLED SOBIESKI

(1637)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Dresden Gallery_

THE MAN WITH THE BITTERN

(1639)]