Mauritshuis, The Hague_ Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces (2)

Mauritshuis, The Hague

Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces

(2)

REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van RijnThe Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp1632Oil on canvas, 170 x 217 cmMauritshuis, The Hague

REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van RijnThe Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (detail)1632Oil on canvas, 170 x 217 cmMauritshuis, The Hague





REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van RijnSaul and Davidc. 1655Oil on canvas, 131 x 164 cmMauritshuis, The Hague

REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van RijnSaul and David (detail)c. 1655Oil on canvas, 131 x 164 cmMauritshuis, The Hague





REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van RijnSimeon's Song of Praise,1631Oil on panel, 61 x 48 cmMauritshuis, The Hague

REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van RijnSimeon's Song of Praise(detail)1631Oil on panel, 61 x 48 cmMauritshuis, The Hague



Mauritshuis, The Hague_Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces (2)

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REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van RijnSimeon's Song of Praise

The painting is a major work dating from the end of Rembrandt's Leiden period. A feature of his style at this time (1630-31) is a liking for elongated figures, diagonal compositional lines and mysterious, cavernous spaces. In the present scene, Joseph and Mary are in the temple to dedicate their newborn baby Jesus to God, where the child is recognised by Simeon as the long-awaited Messiah. The old man takes him in his arms and bursts into a song of praise. The divine light that floods Simeon appears to be

shining from the child himself.

REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van RijnThe Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

Rembrandt began to work as a professional portraitist about 1631. His earliest existing commissioned portraits (Portrait of a Scholar, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg; Portrait of the Amsterdam Merchant Nicholaas Ruts, Frick Collection, New York) are both of that year. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp of 1632 shows how quickly he surpassed the smooth

technique of the fashionable Amsterdam portraitists. The group portrait of Tulp, appointed 'praelector anatomiae' of Amsterdam's surgeon guild in 1628, and seven of the guild's members probably established his reputation immediately. All potential clients must have been impressed by the new vitality and pictorial richness he gave to the portraits. The picture

still impresses us today by the dramatic concentration of the figures on Tulp's demonstration of the dissection of a forearm.

REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van RijnThe Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

The corpse is the focus of the composition, by its intense brightness. From here, the eye of the spectator is led to the illuminated heads of the listeners, whose expressions and attitudes reflect different degrees of attention, and to the face and hands of Tulp, who is a most convincing representation of a scholar absorbed in his subject. With forceps in his right hand Tulp holds the muscles and tendons of the arm that control the movement of the hand, while the bent fingers of his left hand demonstrate an aspect of their wondrous

action.

The illusionism is enhanced by the vivid characterization of the individuals as well as by the artist's great power in dramatizing the moment within a coherent group. Without the strong chiaroscuro and the fine atmospheric quality that is combined with it, the picture would lose its intensity, the sculptural quality of the forms, and all the excitement of the

moment. Here, psychological and pictorial tension combine to create the feeling of an extraordinary event.

REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn

Saul and David

The deep human suffering of the tyrant king was never expressed so well as in this work. Rembrandt, the greatest master of rendering the human soul in painting, filtered out of the twenty-five-hundred-year-old story what he had to say to his own seventeenth century Holland, while at the same time he fashioned a musical solution to spiritual suffering with the use

of an eternal allegory of uplifting influence of artistic beauty.The life-size bust figures of Saul and David appear in a narrow opening against the dark background. With this composition the painter created the most intimate connection between the

viewer and the figures in the painting. Within the picture, however, there are two strikingly different worlds. The broken old king, weighed down by his sufferings, turn inward in his lonely torment, no longer raving and ready to attack. His is a faraway look, and he limply holds onto the spear.

With his left hand he wearily draws the blue velvet curtain to hide his sadness dissolving into tears. The fragile figure of the young David playing the harp is outside the dark circle of this misery. The light bouncing off his white collar and cuffs emphasizes his head, gently bent over his

instrument and his finely formed hands. He is totally involved with his music, which connects the two and unifies them in this, the purest moment of catharsis.In 1969, the attribution of the painting to Rembrandt was rejected, but after a long period of study and treatment, the painting is once again considered to be an authentic Rembrandt.

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Mauritshuis, The Hague_ Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces (2)