But absolutely black
shadows would not be beautiful. Fancy a picture in which the shadows
were as black as well-polished boots! Rembrandt had to find out how
to make his dark shadows rich, and how to make a picture, in which
shadow predominated, a beautiful thing in itself, a thing that would
decorate a wall as well as depict the chosen subject. That was no easy
problem, and he had to solve it for himself. It was his life's work.
He applied his new idea in the painting of portraits and in subject
pictures, chiefly illustrative of dramatic incidents in Bible history,
for the same quality in him that made him love the flare of light,
made him also love the dramatic in life.
Rembrandt's mother was a Protestant, who brought up her son with a
thorough knowledge of the Scripture stories, and it was the Bible that
remained to the end of his life one of the few books he had in his
house. The dramatic situations that he loved were there in plenty.
Over and over again he painted the Nativity of Christ. Sometimes the
Baby is in a tiny Dutch cradle with its face just peeping out, and
the shepherds adoring it by candle-light.
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