How Rembrandt created a genius -- himself

September 28 - October 5, 2000

[Art Reviews]

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How Rembrandt created a genius -- himself

by Jeffrey Gantz
"REMBRANDT CREATES REMBRANDT:
ART AND AMBITION
IN LEIDEN 1629-1631." At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, through January 7.

"Self-Portrait" (1629), by Rembrandt

If 1999 was the year of John Singer Sargent and Egypt in the New England art world, then 2000 has belonged to the Netherlands, with "Van Gogh: Face to Face" and "Van Gogh to Mondrian: Dutch Works on Paper" at the Museum of Fine Arts and now "Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden, 1629-1631" at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Rembrandt and Vincent were both Dutch and both great artists, and both signed their works with their given names, in the tradition of Giotto, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian. But whereas Vincent was a miserable self-promoter whose genius was totally overlooked in his lifetime, Rembrandt had three paintings -- one a self-portrait -- acquired by no less than Charles I of England before he'd received a single commission. It's the combination of ambition and artistry with which Rembrandt made himself a commercial success that's the subject of this latest in the Gardner's series of little jewel-in-the-crown shows.
Rembrandt was born in 1606 in the conservative university town of Leiden (between Amsterdam and Den Haag), the ninth child of miller Harmen Gerritsz van Rijn. By the time he was 21, he had set up a joint studio with fellow novice Jan Lievens. In 1632, having decided he was ready for the big time, he moved to Amsterdam, where he married the daughter of a burgemeester and quickly became a wealthy successful artist. Saskia died in 1642, and thereafter the public's changing artistic tastes and Rembrandt's own excessive spending contributed to his financial decline, even as the death of his mistress in 1663 and his son in 1668 left him bitter and sad; he himself died in relative obscurity in 1669. But it's the final years in Leiden, between 1629 and 1631, that the Gardner has spotlit, when Rembrandt the young painter created Rembrandt the great artist.
How did he do it? You can get a jumpstart by looking at the Museum of Fine Arts' contribution to the show, Artist in His Studio. The subject couldn't be more banal: an artist, an easel with a large oak panel, a cavernous and otherwise empty studio. There's fabulous detail: the cracked yellow floorboards (you can practically hear them creaking); the crumbling rough plaster on the walls; the easel's worn lower crossbar (apparently the artist has been using it as a footrest); the whetstone; the palettes on the wall. Rembrandt shows us everything and yet there's a lot he doesn't tell us. Who is this artist? Rembrandt himself? Jan Lievens? EveryArtist? Why is he so small (almost childlike) and so distant in relationship to the huge, center-stage easel? Is Rembrandt suggesting that art dwarfs the artist? This artist is decked out in a gown and oversized beret, but he's not actually painting or even anywhere near the easel. And what is on the easel, whose back is turned to us? Has the artist finished? Has he started? Is he just standing there in awe of the light that seems to emanate from the oak panel? Is this painting about the mystery of creation?
Unanswered questions, it turns out, are as endemic to Rembrandt's work as his innovative and imaginative technique. He did not give his paintings titles, so the ones we know them by are open to dispute. (The famous Night Watch is actually a portrait of the civic militia of Captain Frans Banning Cocq as they prepare to parade; it's not set at night, and even if it were, that wouldn't explain the fair-haired little girl with the chicken strapped to her belt.) So is their authenticity: under the ægis of the Rembrandt Research Project, paintings have gone in and out of favor. (The Polish Rider was deattributed some years ago but now, according to Rijksmuseum curator Wouter Kloek, may be back in.) Of the 20 works that the Gardner has assembled (11 oils, nine etchings), 15 are credited to Rembrandt and two to Lievens; the remaining three are "circle of Rembrandt" or "attributed to Rembrandt" -- but even the "true" Rembrandts aren't all universally accepted.
Man in Military Costume, for instance, did not receive the imprimatur of the Rembrandt Research Project back in 1982, though most scholars believe it's authentic. Technique aside, the questions it asks are typical of Rembrandt. Who is this old man with the pensive eyes and the pursed, hardbitten lips? Does the gorget (military breastplate) he's wearing identify him as an old soldier? Or is he an aristocrat who'd like to be thought of as an old soldier? Or a model whom Rembrandt dressed up (we know a gorget was one of the artist's studio props)? The face has a lot to say about being old, but does it register pride or disappointment? No matter how hard we look, Rembrandt is telling us, this painting isn't going to give us the answers.
More questions surround the three portraits of Rembrandt here. Jan Lievens's Portrait of Rembrandt shows a young man with curly hair, a soft, round face, and sensuous lips: he could be meditating on a poem or (more likely, I think) anticipating his next meal. It's a forthright presentation, with most of the face open to view -- and though there's no actual proof that the subject is Rembrandt, that's the scholarly consensus. The Gardner Self-Portrait, on the other hand, is a fantasy that depicts Rembrandt as a national living treasure: wearing a velvet mantle with gold chain, a plumed jeweled bonnet, and a silk scarf with gold threads, he could be the Netherlands' Painter Laureate. Yet the face half in shadow, the slightly blank gaze, the apprehensive lips, and the cloud of hair also proclaim him as his country's Mystery Laureate, an artist who surpasses understanding.
The subject of Portrait of Rembrandt with a Gorget (the one in the Mauritshuis in Den Haag) is likewise a noble, elevated being. There's some question as to whether this latter work is a Rembrandt or a copy of the Portrait of Rembrandt with a Gorget that's in Nürnberg's national museum, but whichever version you choose, this poetic, sphinxlike Rembrandt is totally unlike the open book that Jan Lievens shows us (just look at the difference in the eyes). So which is the real Rembrandt? Has Lievens projected his own slightly more polished and more mundane sensibility onto his friend and fellow artist? Or has Rembrandt created an idealized image of himself?
We'll never know exactly what Rembrandt looked like, but we can see what kind of artist he created between 1629 and 1631: one who understands how visual images withhold as well as reveal. Three paintings that are grouped together -- Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem (on a rare visit from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam), Old Man Wearing a Cap, and The Apostle Peter Kneeling -- attest to the artist's vibrant handling of aged people: this trio may be old and wrinkled, but their skin glows, and their faces bespeak dignity and understanding, even as they elude our understanding. Peter, identifiable only by the keys lying beside him, is sunk in thought; his surroundings, which have occasioned much scholarly controversy, could be prison, or a portal just after his denial of Jesus, or his own private hell. What he's thinking is a matter for speculation. The contemplative old man with the cap is similarly unreadable. As for Jeremiah (whom past scholars identified as Lot or Anchises), he appears to be having a vision of the Babylonian conquest. Rembrandt depicts that vision off to the side, darkly; it's Jeremiah's emotional experience that's at issue. And it's Rembrandt's genius that this painting shows us what can be seen of the experience and no more. Sometimes the greatest art is what's not on the canvas. That's what made Rembrandt, even in Leiden, Rembrandt.

The Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt catalogue (hardbound, $32) includes insightful essays by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Mariët Westermann, Christopher White, and Gardner curator Alan Chong plus mini-essays on each of the 20 works in the show. The Gardner is also offering a day-long symposium, "Rethinking Rembrandt," on Saturday October 14, to be chaired by Alan Chong and Boston University's Michael Zell. Tickets are $20 (free for students), and advance reservations are recommended; call (617) 278-5101.