The encounter between observer and subject
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The Amsterdam Merchant Nicolaes Ruts
1631
Oil on mahagony panel, 118,5 x 88,5 cm
Frick Collection, New York
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Rembrandt's first portrait commissions came from Amsterdam. In
comparison with his previous self-portraits and studies of heads,
the first commissioned works from the year 1631 reveal a new
approach. The Amsterdam Merchant Nicolaes Ruts is
depicted in fine clothes, with shimmering dark material, soft fur on
gown and cap, and a translucent ruff. Everything is finished off
down to the last detail. The man holding a note in his hand is quite
consciously presenting himself to the observer. Like the numerous
portraits that were to follow, A Man Sharpening a Quill
demonstrates a high degree of exquisiteness and perfection in
its execution. However, the posture no longer corresponds simply to
the pose for a portrait, as was the case with Nicolaes Ruts;
although his eyes are turned towards the observer, the manner in
which he is sharpening his quill suggests that he has merely briefly
interrupted his writing and, sunk in thought, is momentarily looking
to the front.
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Man Sharpening a Quill
1632
Oil on canvas, 102 x 82 cm
Staatliche Museen, Kassel
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Cornelisz. Sylvius
1646
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All the indications are that these portraits were
extremely concise, accurate and true-to-life
representations. Indeed, it was this depictional perfection
that was to bring the young artist an increasing number of
commissions of an ever more prominent nature. The extent to
which Rembrandt's art of portraiture was held in awe may be
seen in a couplet by Constantijn Huygens on the portrait of
Jacob de Gheyn: "This is Rembrandt's hand and de Gheyn's
face. Be amazed, o reader - it is de Gheyn, and yet it is
not." Capturing the presence of the person portrayed by
means of the appearance of the portrait - this was the ideal
which the acknowledged young artist fulfilled in the
up-and-coming metropolis. The painter had attained a degree
of perfection that could hardly be improved upon. Here, too,
the limits of art - such as had hitherto been valid - would
seem to have been reached.
Rembrandt, however, was not content with merely fulfilling
the expectations of his clients. After only a few works, he
was to abandon the customarily accepted forms of
presentation and turn to structuring his portraits as he had
previously his scenes. He presents Jan Cornelisz.
Sylvius, the pastor, preaching out of the frame of
the picture as if from his pulpit. The Bible, in which
Sylvius has placed his finger to mark the place of a
quotation, and his declaiming hand project beyond the
surrounding oval, as do the shadows that they cast. The
baroque motif of illusion suggests the lifting of the
barrier between the pictorial world and that inhabited by
the observer, a barrier which would otherwise be defined by
the frame. The vivid effect created by the double portraits
of this time stems from their depicting the people portrayed
in situations characteristic of their work.
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The Mennonite Minister Cornelis Claesz. Anslo in
Conversation with his Wife, Aaltje
1641
Oil on canvas, 176 x 210 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin
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Jan Rijcksen and Griet Jans
1633
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It was only a short time after starting work in Amsterdam that
Rembrandt was awarded the prestigious commission from Nicolaes Tulp,
Prelector of the Guild of Surgeons, to execute a group portrait
(Doctor Nicolaes Tulp Demonstrating the Anatomy of the Arm).
Public anatomical lectures had become customary, and were intended —
as is no longer the case today - to demonstrate the wisdom of the
Creator in His construction of the human body. The most important
thing when performing a dissection was that what was revealed should
not challenge but rather uphold this wisdom, as it had been
preserved in the books of the great philosophers. It was not until
the beginning of the 17th century that interest in anatomy was fully
aroused. Every insight into the structure of the body was a
sensation, and the lectures found a wide public. Vesalius, the
famous surgeon, had been the first to dissect the muscles and
tendons of the hand, and Nicolaes Tulp, the "Amsterdam Vesalius",
was held in great esteem.
Rembrandt breaks with traditional form in his very first group
portrait, depicting the persons involved not in a row next to each
other but collected around the body, the tendons of the right
forearm of which are exposed. As an aid to the lecture that he is
delivering, the surgeon is lifting some tendons with his forceps. In
imposing contrast to the other figures, Tulp is seated on an
armchair and is also the only one wearing a large hat. His audience
of seven respected Guild members is listening to the lecture, and
the different character of each person's behaviour is vividly
portrayed. Rembrandt lets their expressions speak. He shows the
looks of concentration directed at the speaker, the sceptically
expert inspection of the dissection, the manner in which it is
followed in and compared with the book lying open in the right
foreground - but also the distracted look so typical of people who
are listening intently, the unfocussed gaze of a person
concentrating upon what he is hearing. In taking part in the
doctor's address, each of the figures is participating in a
collective action.
There is a further dimension which also comes into play here. The
typical behaviour at a lecture includes the exchange of glances with
another listener with whom one is familiar, an exchange expressing
or requesting agreement with what has been said. It is in this way
that the look of the doctor whose head towers above those of all the
others, directed forwards out of the scene in the picture, may be
understood - as an exchange of glances with the observer, who
thereby sees himself challenged to participate in the actions of
those involved in the depicted incident, to join them in listening
and looking. Indeed, he sees possible ways of behaviour spread out
in the picture in front of him, in the spectrum of different
gestures and facial expressions; in observing the lecturer, in
looking at the body, the book or the other figures, he is for his
part performing the same actions as the protagonists in the picture.
In this way, he can put himself in the position of the audience of
experts.
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__________________
__________________
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Rembrandt:
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes
Tulp
(Norbert Schneider)
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Rembrandt
Doctor Nicolaes Tulp Demonstrating the Anatomy of the Arm
1632
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In his "Introduction to Anatomy" Leonardo da Vinci wrote that he
had "dissected more than ten human bodies, dismembering every other
part and removing every tiny piece of flesh surrounding the arteries
without spilling more than a few drops of blood from one or two
capillary veins... And even if you are interested in such matters,
you may well be deterred by a feeling of disgust; and should this
not repulse you, you still might be disturbed by fear of spending
your nights in the company of horribly flayed and mutilated corpses;
and if this prospect does not put you off, you may yet have failed
to acquire the proficiency in drawing which is necessary for such
studies..."
Leonardo was by no means the first artist to study pathological
anatomy in order to perfect his ability to depict the human body.
His teacher Andrea Verrocchio, and Andrea Mantegna, painter to the
Mantuan court, had both experimented in this field. Century-old
church prohibitions against the dissection of human corpses had
gradually relaxed during the last decades of the quattrocento.
Various tentative postmortem examinations had been carried out in
the Middle Ages, too - by Mondino de Luzzi (c. 1275-1326) at Bologna
(1306), for example. A textbook based on his examinations had
somehow managed to escape prohibition for over two centuries.
However, Pope Boniface VIII had forbidden, under penalty of
excommunication, all further experiments involving the dismembering
or boiling down of human corpses. Leonardo's words, cited above,
reveal the sense of novelty, disgust and horror which accompanied
the first breaches of this prohibition to be undertaken in the
spirit of "curiositas", or scientific curiosity. For even teachers
of medicine at the universities had avoided all contact with human
corpses. In the late fifteenth century Italian woodcuts had depicted
professors of medicine removed from their listeners behind raised
lecterns, as they delivered abstract lectures based on anatomical
knowledge derived solely from Classical sources like Hippocrates,
Galen or Dioscurides, while beneath them, surgical assistants
dissected real corpses.
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Rembrandt
Doctor Nicolaes Tulp Demonstrating the Anatomy of the Arm
(detail)
1632
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Johannes de Ketham
Anatomical Section
1493-94 |
This did not change until the sixteenth century. One of the most
important testimonies to new developments in anthropotomy, or human
anatomy, is the work, based almost entirely on his own observations,
of the Netherlandish anatomist Andreas Vesalius ("De corporis humani
fabrica", 1543). This work also expressed its author's theological
views, for Vesalius saw the human body as a "product of divine
handiwork". One interesting aspect of the woodcuts (possibly by Jan
Stephan van Calcar) which accompanied the book is the way in which
the corpses, depicted to illustrate various systems of arteries,
tendons, muscles and bones etc., seem paradoxically vital, moving
and behaving as if they were living beings, indeed even reflecting -
in a manner possibly also illustating the artist's macabre sense of
humour - on the transience of all earthly life.
Rembrandt's famous painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes
Tulp (1632), an example of a type of group portrait
cultivated particularly by Netherlandish artists, shows the changing
relationship of medical science to the human corpse in the early
days of empiricism. A more secular view of death is apparent here in
the matter-of-fact attitude towards the corpse demonstrated by the
professor and his students. The professor, the only figure shown
wearing a hat, has exposed to view the tendons and muscles of the
left arm. The corpse - dissections were usually performed on the
bodies of executed criminals - lies almost diagonally across the
picture space. The listeners, some portrayed in profile, others "en
face", are grouped around the dead man's head. They are bending over
to compare the empirical data with an open textbook, placed rather
inconspicuously in the shadows at the foot of the bed.
"Rembrandt met his sitters' demands to portray each one of them
individually. He also enabled his main subject, an anatomy lesson,
to be seen for the first time in its own right." The truth of this
statement can only be fully appreciated by comparing Rembrandt's
painting with the earliest known painting of an anatomy lesson,
executed by Aert Pietersz in 1603, in which the 28 members of the
Amsterdam Surgeons' Guild, together with their lecturer, are shown
standing in three paratactic rows. The arrangement reveals their
desire to be portrayed as separately from one another as possible.
The effect is partly to conceal the corpse, making the assembled
company look as if it has been engaged in some form of clandestine
pursuit.
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Gerard David
The Flaying of the Corrupt Judge Sisamnes
1498-99
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Attention has too rarely been called to the fact that
Rembrandt's composition builds on an earlier type of
painting, developed by Gerard David to depict the course of
justice when the corrupt Judge Sisamnes was flayed alive at
the behest of King Cambyses (The Flaying of the
Corrupt Judge Sisamnes). The humorous parallel
suggested here by Rembrandt - between an executioner's
assistant flaying someone alive and a professor of anatomy
dissecting a corpse - may have introduced a latent element
of criticism in the painting.
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Rembrandt
The Anatomy Class of Dr. Joan Deyman
1656
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Andrea Mantegna
The Dead Christ
1480
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The appropriate sense of sobriety brought by Rembrandt to
this painting does not seem to have precluded his imbuing it
with an equally apparent emotional depth. This is confirmed
in a second - albeit fragmentary - "anatomy lesson",
presided over by a Dr. Joan Deyman (The Anatomy Class
of Dr. Joan Deyman) and executed in 1656. A
preliminary study in bistre and ink (now in the
Rijksprentenkabinett, Amsterdam) shows that the painting,
which was largely destroyed by fire in 1723, was composed
symmetrically. Small groups of figures are shown standing to
the left and right. Behind the corpse - which belonged to a
certain Joris Fontein, condemned to death for robbery on 27
January 1656 - is the lecturer, whose hands, holding a
scalpel, are all that now remain of him. The top of the
skull has been lifted off to reveal the cerebral
hemispheres. When viewed from a distance, the scalp, peeled
off and hanging down at either side of the head, resembles
long, flowing hair, so that the frontal view of the dead
man's face recalls certain renderings of Christ. Indeed the
compositional arrangement of the dead body, with its feet
stretched out towards the spectator, closely follows that of
Mantegna's Christo in scurto (c. 1480), one of
the most impressive devotional paintings of the early
Renaissance. The formal parallel here implies that the dead
man in Rembrandt's painting, who has been outlawed by
society, and whose mortal remains have been denied all
sanctuary and due respect, is redeemed in Christ's words:
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matth. 25, 40).
Spirituality, and, by extension in Rembrandt's painting,
social pathos, had played an increasingly important role in
the artist's work during the 1650s. The subject of the
painting may even have been a deliberate reference to the
biblical passage cited above.
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_______________________
_______________________
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Saskia
1633 |
If we assume that Rembrandt's painting represented a particularly good likeness
of those being portrayed, and if we also assume that the work hung in the
Guild's convening chamber, then the scene must have created an almost amazingly
true-to-life impression upon contemporary viewers. It is noteworthy what deep
respect came Rembrandt's way as a result of the representational realism of
precisely this scene. For the body — that of an executed criminal known to us by
name - is also realistically depicted, and the representation of the dissected
arm corresponds to the state of knowledge at the time. Rembrandt's estate even
included plaster casts of arms which had been dissected by Vesalius.
The development of the individuals notwithstanding, it should be noted that the
behaviour of the persons is for the most part typical of such a situation, and
that the individual features are also more emphatically delineated than is
really necessary for the situation. As a result, it is true to say that the
individual qualities of expression become all the clearer. However, this
heightening betrays to today's eyes a tendency towards pose, one which Rembrandt
was only to overcome later - albeit then completely. Despite this, the
representational fascination of this picture was so great at the time - and
continues to be so today -that it was hardly noticed how unrealistic the whole
scene is in comparison with a situation in reality.
The figures have been placed so closely together that it is impossible to
ascertain who is standing, who sitting, and where. Moreover, their proximity to
each other is such as to grant them no room in which to move. Nor does the
element of perspective aid us in fixing their position in the depicted
surroundings. While it is true that the depicted room does not create a narrow
impression, it is still taken up almost entirely by the bodies of the figures.
Most of these figures are depicted as if seen from a point somewhat below them —
yet from where could such a perspective be obtained? The arrangement also leaves
unclear where the observer - who is otherwise included to such a great extent in
the action - should see himself in relation to the scene in the picture. The
dense nature of the action is of course emphasized by the manner in which the
figures have been moved so close together; nonetheless, the realism of the
action is achieved at the expense of the remaining depicted reality. The
plausibility of the action's coherence conceals the implausibility of the
spatial situation. It is the action which unites the figures, and not the
setting - for the setting is ultimately not the lecture theatre portrayed in the
picture, but the picture alone. In spite of everything, however, it is the
uniting of the eight half-length portraits to form a group, representing a
fitting manner of depiction in the view of the Guild members, that asserts
itself as the principal reason for the portrayal. This attitude also explains
why Rembrandt's circle of clients became ever smaller as his portraits gradually
ceased to be a representative end in itself, finally focussing entirely upon
their action — in the encounter between observer and subject.
There are other ways in which Rembrandt connects a portrait with the course of
events in a happening. Occasionally, he will assign the subject of the portrait
a role within a "history painting". The young artist, meanwhile already a member
of the Amsterdam Guild of St. Luke, aiming at the highpoint of his career and,
two years later, defending himself with a slander action against the accusation
that his wife was senselessly squandering her dowry, presents himself dressed in
velvet, brocade and silk, with rapier, feathered hat and raised glass, and with
Saskia on his lap, as The Prodigal Son in the Tavern. He
had already depicted his mother in one of his early works in the role of the
prophetess Hannah; towards the end of his life, he was to paint his son Titus
and his daughter-in-law as Isaac and Rebecca. Conversely, Rembrandt was to bring
characters from history into his late works - Aristotle, blind Homer, old Simeon
- depicting them in such an individualized way that the pictures acquired the
quality of an encounter between observer and subject such as is found in a
portrait. In his late works, a differentiation between the depiction of an event
and a portrait is no longer possible.
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Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal
Son in the Tavern
1635
Oil on canvas, 161 x 131 cm
Gemaldegalerie, Dresden
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