Rembrandt's Eyes

Rembrandt was born on this day, 15th of July 1606.

" There were travellers and they were stay-at-homes. The Dutch, who had become the world's geographers, mapmakers on paper and map changers on ships, were, at the same time, the most puzzlingly domestic of all the nations of Europe.............. Rembrandt would never be in the trasformation business, at least not in the manner the classicists understood it. In this sense, the critics who attacked him later in life for his coarse indifference to aesthetic decorum were quite right, and Jan Emmens was quite wrong to assume that this was merely a retrospective and anachronistic judgement. Throughout his career, Rembrandt was less interested in finding the god in the man than the an in the god. "

The Artist in his studio, 1629. Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Self-portrait as a Beggar seated on a bank, 1630. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

 

 

Portrait of Jan Six,1647. Amsterdam, Six Collection.

Text and paintings are taken from the 747 pages unconventional biography titled "Rembrandt's Eyes" written by Simon Schama, published by Penguin books. A must read.