Rembrandt and His Works Part 1

Rembrandt and His Works.

by John Burnet.

PREFACE.

The high estimation in which I have ever held the works of Rembrandt has been greatly increased by my going through this examination of his various excellencies, and such will ever be the case when the emanations of genius are investigated; like the l.u.s.tre of precious stones, their luminous colour shines from the centre, not from the surface. With such a mine of rich ore as the works of Rembrandt contain, it is necessary to apologise for the paucity of examples offered, for in a work of this kind I have been obliged to confine myself to a certain brevity and a limited number of ill.u.s.trations; still I must do my publisher the justice to say, he has not grudged any expense that would be the means of doing credit to the great artist, the enlightened patron, or my own reputation. Another circ.u.mstance has been elicited in preparing this work for publication--the great interest that all have shown in this humble attempt to make Rembrandt and his works more generally appreciated. His genius and productions seem to be congenial to the English taste. As a colourist he will ultimately lay the foundation of the British School of Painting, and prove the justice of Du Fresnoy's lines--

"He who colours well must colour bright; Think not that praise to gain by sickly white."

Had it been possible, I would have given some examples of his colour as well as of his chiaro-scuro; but I found his great charm consists more in the tone of his colouring than its arrangement. I have mentioned in the body of the work that Sir Joshua, certainly the greatest master of colour we have yet had in England, frequently speaks ambiguously of many of Rembrandt's pictures. I am therefore bound to quote a remark that he makes to his praise. In his Memoranda he says--"I considered myself as playing a great game; and instead of beginning to save money, I laid it out faster than I got it, in purchasing the best examples of art that could be procured, for I even borrowed money for this purpose. The possession of pictures by t.i.tian, Vand.y.k.e, Rembrandt, &c., I considered as the best kind of wealth."

With these remarks I must now launch the result of my labours, having had constantly in mind that feeling which an advocate has in a good cause, not to expect, by all his exertions, to increase the reputation of his client, but an anxiety not to damage it by his weakness. Before concluding I must again revert to the interest that all my friends have taken in the success of this publication; and though it may appear invidious to particularise any, I cannot omit mention of that enthusiastic admirer of Rembrandt, my young friend Mr. E. W. Cooke; the Messrs. Smith, of Lisle-street, the connoisseurs and extensive dealers in his Etchings; Mr. Carpenter, the keeper of the prints in the British Museum; and, lastly, my young literary friend, Mr. Peter Cunningham, who has, from the beginning, entered heartily into the cause of "Rembrandt and his Works."

BROMPTON, November 4th, 1848.

REMBRANDT.

In commencing an account of the life of Rembrandt Van Rhn and his works, I feel both a pleasure and a certain degree of confidence, as, from my first using a pencil, his pictures have been my delight and gratification, which have continued to increase through a long life of investigation. Though I cannot expect to enhance the high estimation in which Rembrandt is held by all persons competent to appreciate his extraordinary powers, nevertheless, the publication of the results of my study may tend to spread a knowledge of his principles and practice, which may be advantageous to similar branches in other schools; for, notwithstanding that his style is in the greatest degree original and peculiar to himself, yet it is founded upon those effects existing in nature which are to be discovered, more or less, in the works of all the great masters of colouring and chiaro-scuro. Of his early life little is known; for, unless cradled in the higher circles of society, the early lives of eminent men frequently remain shrouded in obscurity.

The development of their genius alone draws attention to their history, which is generally progressive; hence a retrospective view is ambiguous.

Little is known either of Rembrandt's birth or the place of his death; what is known has already been related, from Houbraken to Bryan, and from Bryan to Nieuwenhuys, and anecdotes have acc.u.mulated, for something new must be said. It is, however, fortunate that in searching into the source from which this extraordinary artist drew his knowledge, we have only to look into the great book of Nature, which existed at the time of Apelles and Raffaelle; and, notwithstanding the diversity of styles adopted by all succeeding painters, beauties and peculiarities are still left sufficient to establish the highest reputation for any one who has the genius to perceive them, and the industry to make them apparent. This was the cause of Rembrandt's captivating excellence; neither a combination of Coreggio and t.i.tian, nor of Murillo and Velasquez, but as if all the great principles of chiaro-scuro and colour were steeped and harmonized in the softening shades of twilight; and this we perceive in nature, producing the most soothing and bewitching results. These digressions may, however, come more properly into notice when Rembrandt's principles of colour come under review.

Rembrandt Van Rhn, the subject of this memoir, was born in the year 1606, between Leydendorp and Koukerk, in the neighbourhood of Leyden, on the Rhn, but certainly not in a mill, as there is no habitable dwelling in the one now known as his father's. My excellent young friend, Mr. E.

W. Cooke, whose works breathe the true spirit of the best of the Dutch school, in a letter upon this subject, says--

"MY DEAR SIR,

"I send you another sketch of the mill; the picture, including the doorzigte, or view out of the window, I painted on the spot, and that picture is now in the possession of the King of Holland, having taken it back with me to show him. The mill was a magazine for powder during the Spanish invasion; it was soon after converted into a corn mill, and was in the possession of Hernan Geritz Van Rhn when his son Rembrandt was born; it is situated at Koukerk, on the old Rhn, near Leyden. I hope you will correct the vulgar error that Rembrandt was born IN a mill. There are often dwelling houses attached to water-mills, such as we have in England; but in Holland, not such a structure as a water-mill, with water-power; the water-mills there are only _draining mills_, such as we have in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, &c. Surely the noise and movement of a windmill would ill accord with the confinement of any lady, especially the mother of so glorious a fellow as _Rembrandt_. For the honour of such a.s.sociation I hope you will not omit my name in the work, for I painted three pictures of that precious relic.

"Yours, &c.

"E. W. COOKE."

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF THE MILL OF REMBRANDT'S FATHER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXTERIOR OF THE SAME]

The mill now known as the one possessed by Rembrandt's father is built of stone, with an inscription, and "_Rembrandt_," in gold letters, over the door. The one etched by his eminent son is a wooden structure, which must have long since fallen into decay. As they are both interesting, from a.s.sociation of ideas, I have given etchings of them.

The mother of Rembrandt was Neeltje Willems Van Zuitbroek, whose portrait he has etched. As he was an only child, his parents were anxious to give him a good education, and therefore sent him to the Latin school at Leyden, in order to bring him up to the profession of the law; but, like our own inimitable Shakspere, he picked up "small Latin and less Greek." Having shown an early inclination for painting, they placed him under the tuition of Jacob Van Zwaanenburg, a painter unmentioned by any biographer; he afterwards entered the studio of Peter Lastman, and finally received instruction from Jacob Pinas. The two last had visited Rome, but, notwithstanding, could have given little instruction to Rembrandt, as their works show no proof of their having studied the Italian school to much purpose. After receiving a knowledge of a few rules, such as they could communicate, he returned home, and commenced painting from nature, when he laid the foundation of a style in art unapproached either before his time or since. In 1627 he is said, by Houbraken, to have visited the Hague, when, by the price he received for one of his pictures, he discovered his value as an artist. The neighbourhood of the Rhine was now given up for the city of Amsterdam, where he set up his easel in the year 1628, under the patronage of the Burgomaster Six, and other wealthy admirers of the fine arts.

Rembrandt's first works, like all the early works of eminent artists, were carefully finished; the work that raised him to the greatest notice, in the first instance, is Professor Tulpius giving an Anatomical Lecture on a dead Body,[1] and is dated 1632. Reynolds, in his Tour through Flanders, speaking of this picture, says:--"The Professor Tulpius dissecting a corpse which lies on the table, by Rembrandt. To avoid making it an object disagreeable to look at, the figure is just cut at the wrist. There are seven other portraits, coloured like nature itself; fresh, and highly finished. One of the figures behind has a paper in his hand, on which are written the names of the rest. Rembrandt has also added his own name, with the date 1632. The dead body is perfectly well drawn, (a little foreshortened,) and seems to have been just washed; nothing can be more truly the colour of dead flesh. The legs and feet, which are nearest the eye, are in shadow; the princ.i.p.al light, which is on the body, is by that means preserved of a compact form; all these figures are dressed in black." He further adds--"Above stairs is another Rembrandt, of the same kind of subject: Professor Nieman, standing by a dead body, which is so much foreshortened that the hands and feet almost touch each other; the dead man lies on his back, with his feet towards the spectator. There is something sublime in the character of the head, which reminds one of Michael Angelo; the whole is finely painted,--the colouring much like t.i.tian."

Simeon in the Temple, in the Museum of the Hague, painted in 1631, is in his first manner; as are The Salutation, in the Gallery of the Marquis of Westminster, painted in 1640; and The Woman taken in Adultery, in the National Gallery, painted in 1644, all on panel, and finished with the care and minuteness of Gerhard Dow. His most successful career may be taken from 1630 to 1656. About the year 1645 he married Miss Saskia Van Uylenburg, by whom he had an only son, named t.i.tus, the inheritor of the little wealth left after his father's embarra.s.sments, but, though bred to the arts, inheriting little of his father's genius. In what part of Amsterdam he resided at this time we have no record, nor is the house now shown as Rembrandt's, and which was the subject of a mortgage, sufficiently authenticated to prove its ident.i.ty; he may have lived in it, but it could not at any time have been sufficiently capacious to contain all the effects given in the catalogue extracted from the register by Mr. Nieuwenhuys.

The late Sir David Wilkie, in a letter to his sister, says:--"At the Hague we were delayed with rain, which continued nearly the whole of our way through Leyden, Haarlem, and Amsterdam. Wherever we went, our great subject of interest was seeing the native places of the great Dutch painters, and the models and materials which they have immortalized.

At Amsterdam we sallied forth in the evening, in search of the house of Rembrandt; it is in what is now the Jews' quarter, and is, in short, a Jew's old china shop; it is well built, four stories high, but it greatly disappointed me. The shop is high in the ceiling, but all the other rooms are low and little, and, compared with the houses of t.i.tian at Venice, of Claude at Rome, and of Rubens at Antwerp, is quite unworthy the house of the great master of the school of Holland. Even if stuffed, as it is now, with every description of the pottery of Canton, it could not have held even a sixth part of the inventory Nieuwenhuys found, as the distrained effects of Rembrandt, and the only solution is, that he may have once lived there; but as his will, still extant, is dated in another street, and as several of the pictures he painted could not be contained in the rooms we were in, we must conclude that, like the sh.e.l.l which encloses the caterpillar, it was only a temporary abode for the winged genius to whom art owes so much of its brilliancy."

As the place of his residence is veiled in obscurity, so is the place of his demise, which is supposed to have taken place in 1664, as Mr. Smith, in a note to his Life of Rembrandt, says--"that no picture is recorded bearing a later date than 1664, and the balance of his property was paid over to his son in 1665."

Mr. Woodburn, in a Catalogue of his Drawings, says:--"It is uncertain what became of him after his bankruptcy, or where he died; a search has been made among the burials at Amsterdam, until the year 1674, but his name does not occur; probably Baldinucci is correct in stating that he died at Stockholm, in 1670;" others have mentioned Hull, and some give a credence to his having fled to Yarmouth, during his troubles, and mention two pictures, a lawyer and his wife, said to have been painted there; they are whole lengths, and certainly in his later manner, but I could not gather any authentic account to build conjecture upon, as the intercourse between Amsterdam and Yarmouth has been kept up from olden time, and a Dutch fair held every three years on the sh.o.r.e. The ancestors of the family in whose possession they still are, may have visited Holland; but, amongst such conflicting opinions, it is useless to attempt elucidation of the truth of this. We may rest certain that his works will be appreciated in proportion as a knowledge of their excellence is extended.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REMBRANDT'S HOUSE AT AMSTERDAM]

[Sidenote: _Extract from the Book of Sureties of Real Estates remaining at the Secretary's Office of the City of Amsterdam, fol. 89, &c._]

LEGAL RECEIPT AND DISCHARGE, GIVEN BY t.i.tUS VAN RYN, FOR THE BALANCE OF THE ESTATE OF HIS FATHER, REMBRANDT VAN RYN.

Good for Gls. 6952--9.

the 29.7bre--Willem Muilm.

I the undersigned acknowledge to have received of the said Commissaries the undermentioned six thousand nine hundred and fifty-two Guldens nine Stuivers, the 5th November, 1665.

Received the contents, t.i.tUS VAN RYN.

Before the undersigned Magistrates appeared t.i.tus Van Ryn, the only surviving son of Rembrandt Van Ryn and of Saskia Van Uylenburg (having obtained his veniam aetatis), as princ.i.p.al,--Abraham Fransz, merchant, living in the Angelier Straat, and Bartholomeus Van Benningen, woollen-draper, in the Liesdel, as guarantees. And jointly, and each of them separately, promised to re-deliver into the hands of the Commissaries of the Insolvent Estates, when called upon, the said six thousand nine hundred fifty-two Guldens and nine Stuivers, which the said t.i.tus Van Ryn shall receive of and from the before-mentioned Commissaries, the money arising from the house and ground in the Anthonis bree Straat, A. 1658, which was sold under execution, and from the personal estate of Saskia Van Uylenburg and Rembrandt Van Ryn aforesaid; hereby binding all their goods, moveables, and immoveables, present and future, in order to recover the said sum and costs. Therefore the before-mentioned princ.i.p.al promised to indemnify his said sureties under a similar obligation as above written.--Actum, the 9th September, 1665.

A. J. J. HINLOPEN AND ARNOUT HOOFT.

H. V. BRONCHORST.

2207: a 3:3 6952:1 (Stamp) 8 ________ 6952 9

_The following Catalogue is extracted from the Register L R. fol. 29 to 39 inclusive, of the Inventory of the Effects of_ REMBRANDT VAN RHYN, _deposited in the Office of the Administration of Insolvent Estates at Amsterdam, Anno 1656._

PICTURES, &c.

IN THE ENTRANCE HALL.

A Picture, representing The Gingerbread Baker By _Brauwer_.

A ditto, The Gamblers _Ditto_.

A ditto, A Woman and Child _Rembrandt_.

A ditto, The Interior of an Artist's Painting Room _Brauwer_.