But when people
ordered portraits of themselves they wanted good likenesses, and
Rembrandt was happy to supply them. At first it was only when he was
working at home to please himself that he indulged his picturesque
gift. He painted his father, his mother, and himself over and over
again, but in each picture he tried some experiment with expression,
or a new pose, or a strange effect of lighting, transforming the general
aspect of the original. His own face did as well as any other to
experiment with; none could be offended with the result, and it was
always to be had without paying a model's price for the sitting. Thus
all through his life, from twenty-two to sixty-three, we can follow
the growth of his art with the transformation of his body, in the long
series of pictures of his single self.
More than any artist that had gone before him, Rembrandt was fascinated
by the problem of light. The brightest patch of white on a canvas will
look black if you hold it up against the sky. How, then, can the fire
of sunshine be depicted at all? Experience shows that it can only be
suggested by contrast with shadows almost black.
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