19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 1/5

Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see thisshow'

Rembrandt: The Late Works at the National Gallery contains a staggering number ofmasterpieces, says Mark Hudson

By Mark Hudson

12:05PM BST 13 Oct 2014

Professional criticism and a degree of jadedness go hand in hand. But you’d have to be pretty tired

of art, and probably of life itself, not to get excited at the prospect of seeing 91 Rembrandts.

Indeed, I was running a mental countdown to this exhibition a good week before I got my foot

through the door.

It’s the culmination of a bumper year for artists who achieved ultimate greatness in their final

years. Matisse Cut-Outs was the most popular exhibition in the entire history of Tate, while Late

Turner is still packing them in at Tate Britain. Now at the National we have what promises to be

the crowning glory of this annus mirabilis of “late style”.

Yet with expectation comes a degree of anxiety. Will the curators have secured enough works of

sufficient heft? And does Rembrandt himself carry quite the incontestable weight he once did, or

has Vermeer, long considered the junior partner, hogged the limelight in our perception of the

Dutch Golden Age over the last two decades?

More than that, recent scholarship has given us a more clear-eyed sense of the artist’s alienated

final years. Rembrandt may have been bankrupted, having lost the support of his respectable

burgher audience, and living in sin with his former housekeeper, Hendrickje Stoffels, but the artist

revealed in books such as Simon Schama’s Rembrandt’s Eyes, retained a canny sense of how to

manipulate the viewer. Was the great “humanity” on which his reputation is based, exemplified by

his extraordinary body of self-portraits, the product of painfully candid self-scrutiny, or a

sophisticated, yet essentially sentimental gloss he was able to lay over his images at will?

As if wishing to forestall such doubts, the exhibition hits hard in the first room with four top-notch

self-portraits chronicling the artist’s ageing over the last decade of his life. If the first, from

Washington, slightly overcooks the pathos of the anxiously knit brows, the other three are stunning

– all very well-known works from the Rijksmuseum, National Gallery and Mauritshuis, but no less

19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 2/5

jaw-dropping for that. Yes,

there’s a degree of knowing

theatricality, the sense of him

watching us marvelling at his

depth of feeling, but that’s all

part of what makes them

compelling.

Coming in the wake of a wave

of enthusiasm for the master

illusionist Vermeer, the

exhibition restores a sense of

novelty to Rembrandt’s late

technique. Where Vermeer’s

every last brush-mark is

meticulously blended into the

surface, Rembrandt’s

enjoyment of the fully loaded

brush is everywhere visible, the

sense of exuberant energy

belying his advanced years.

In the massive Conspiracy of the Batavians from Stockholm, the circle of figures is lit from within,

blocking out the source of light, but bathing them in a blazing amber glow so they appear almost

incandescent. If there’s an illustrative, almost naive quality to some of the faces, it’s offset by the

monumentality of the figures and the sheer force of the whole experience. This is one of a number

of works here that set you wondering at the horse-trading that must have gone on to secure them

for the exhibition.

There are a lot of etchings and some superb drawings, all more than worth looking at in their own

right. Most, though, are from the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, and it’s hard to

focus on them when you’ve got major paintings looming around you, such as the Stockholm work,

that you won’t otherwise have the opportunity to see without considerable expense and

inconvenience.

Another such painting is the large Jacob Blessing the Sons of Jacob from Kassel, which veers

19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 3/5

towards the sugary in the faces

of the children, and is patently

unfinished even by the

provisional standards of

Rembrandt’s late work. Yet the

tragic weight of the recumbent

patriarch, contrasting with the

dandyish Joseph standing

beside him, leaves you feeling

that a problematic painting by

Rembrandt is more worthy of

attention than a fully resolved

one by just about anybody else.

Time and again I was reminded

of Rembrandt’s much later

compatriot van Gogh, in the

earthy directness of the vision,

and a compassionate sense of

the physicality of the human

clay. There’s a pasty plainness

to the faces in pendant

portraits of a man and woman,

lent from Washington, but also

a kind of transcendent vitality.

These paintings might appear

masterpieces if they weren’t

hanging near the National

Gallery’s own portraits of

Jacob Trip and his wife

Margaretha de Geer, which

carry the idea of the individual

portrait to a level of daunting, hypnotic brilliance.

A few feet away is one of the greatest of all group portraits, the huge The Syndics of the Drapers’

Guild from the Rijksmuseum, in which the six black-hatted burghers look out at us and beyond us

19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 4/5

with faces that are at once convincing psychological portraits and hauntingly mask-like. Once you

get drawn into the play of their sightlines and the pattern of their stark puritan collars over the

mostly quite dark composition, it takes a real effort of will to drag yourself away.

There are number of secondary

paintings here which under

normal circumstances would

be well worthy of scrutiny,

including two very different

images of the tragic Roman

heroine Lucretia. Indeed, there

are a number of primary works,

notably exquisite portraits of

Rembrandt’s son Titus at his

desk and an elderly woman

reading, which in any other

context would be highlights, but which struggle to get attention beside another of the show’s major

coups, the Portrait of a Couple as Isaac and Rebecca, better known as The Jewish Bride, also from

the Rijksmuseum.

Is there a more frank and intimate depiction of the joy and vulnerability of the matrimonial

moment, as the man lays his hand lovingly on his new wife’s breast and she places her fingers on

his hand? Our attention moves continually between the tender intensity of their expressions and the

sumptuousness of their clothes, the man’s voluminous sleeve captured in thick impasto overlain

with a shimmering golden glaze.

The painting is balanced by the frankly sexy A Woman bathing in a Stream, a private moment

captured in a few economic, yet voluptuous brush strokes, which leads us towards the great erotic

masterpiece of the final room, Bathsheba with King David’s Letter. The thoughtfulness of the face,

musing on the contents of the letter, contrasts with the nakedness of the biblical heroine, embodied

by the golden flesh of Rembrandt’s lover Hendrickje, which we and the artist are given full

opportunity to ogle – the noble and purely carnal aspects of love captured in a masterpiece of

vicarious voyeurism.

In the final corner of the exhibition we see Simeon with the Infant Christ in the Temple, created,

19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 5/5

we must assume, in the artist’s

final days, in which form blurs

into an image of startling, yet

largely accidental modernity.

The exhibition makes little

attempt, probably sensibly, to

chart the progress of

Rembrandt’s deterioration

towards that point. The rooms

are organised thematically, but

texts are confined to the

printed gallery guide, so you

have full opportunity to simply

look at the paintings and enjoy

them in your own way.

This is an exhibition that makes

you realise there is still

validity in the old idea of the

universal masterpiece. I

counted 10, maybe 11, along

with perhaps 20 paintings that are merely superb and a few more that look like generic Rembrandt.

As to which paintings fall into which category, you can make your own mind up, because if you

have any feeling for Rembrandt, for painting or for art of any sort, you must see this show. When it

comes to the great themes of human existence, there is still no one above Rembrandt.

The exhibition runs from Oct 15 – Jan 18. Details here

How we moderate

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2015

19-4-2015 Rembrandt late gem to be shown in UK first time | Art and design | The Guardian

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Rembrandt late gem to be shown inUK first time

The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis among late works on show at

National gallery exhibition in London

The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis by Rembrandt

Mark Brown, arts correspondent

Sunday 5 October 2014 17.26 BST

807Shares

It was meant to be Rembrandt’s triumphant comeback from bankruptcy but ended up

being one of his most demoralising and disastrous paintings ever.

Unloved in the 17th century, but revered today, the painting is now set to travel to the

UK for first time, 352 years after it was rejected by the civic leaders of Amsterdam.

The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis is a remarkable painting that

usually hangs – and rarely leaves –Sweden’s national museum in Stockholm.

It seems to revel in barbarism, with its deformed and grotesque characters. Drastically

cut down by Rembrandt, Simon Schama once said of it: “This may just be the most

heartbreaking fragment in the entire history of painting.”

The closure of the Swedish museum for redevelopment has allowed for a one-off

opportunity. It currently hangs on loan in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and will, it has

just been announced, travel to London in October for the National Gallery’s major

exhibition exploring the late works ofRembrandt.

Betsy Wieseman, curator of Dutch and Flemish paintings at theNational Gallery, said

the painting’s “raw and almost brutal” figures would have worked perfectly in its

intended home – several metres off the ground in Amsterdam’s misleadingly titled

Town Hall, the city’s grandest building, which later became the royal palace.

The painting hung there briefly until the city’s civic leaders returned it, unwanted, to

Rembrandt, who cut it down by nearly three-quarters, from just over 30 sq metres to 3

metres wide and 1.96 metres high.

There are different theories as to what happened in Amsterdam. Certainly there was

good reason to take against it: there were not enough people in it for contemporary

taste and it would have been far more naturalistic than the city leaders were expecting,

19-4-2015 Rembrandt late gem to be shown in UK first time | Art and design | The Guardian

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Cheader%20class%3D%22content__head%20tonal__head%20tonal__head--tone-news%0A%20%20%20%20%22%20style… 2/3

with the one-eyed Dutch hero Claudius Civilis quite shocking – shown full-frontally

rather than the usual profile.

Another reason may have been less aesthetic. Jonathan Bikker, the Rijksmuseum’s

curator of research, said one theory was that Rembrandt, who declared himself

bankrupt in 1656, had been asked to make changes, for which he was going to charge.

“The mayors simply said: ‘No way, forget about it, 1,200 guilders is enough!’”

Whatever the reasons, it was returned to the artist and replaced by a far inferior work

by Govert Flinck, which they already had in their collection and was fairly cheap to get

retouched.

The securing of Claudius Civilis is a real coup but only one of many impressive loans for

the National Gallery exhibition. These include The Jewish Bride and The Syndics from

the Rijksmuseum, which will also host the Rembrandt show next year.

The Mauritshuis in The Hague is sending two of its Rembrandt jewels including Portrait

of an Elderly Man (1667) and the artist’s final self-portrait from 1669. It will not,

though, be sending two remarkable paintings – one of Homer and another of Two

Moors. The gallery’s head of collections, Edwin Buijsen, admitted a degree of relief.

“These two paintings were also requested but we cannot lend them because they were

gifted to the museum by a former director and his will stated they should never leave

the Mauritshuis ... we can never lend them,” he said. “The National Gallery tried but it

is legally not possible.”

The Rembrandt show will be the first in-depth exploration of Rembrandt’s late works, a

time when his creativity and ambition to break conventions burned brighter than ever.

Wieseman said it was hard to keep up with what might have been going on in his mind.

“His late works are his thorniest,” she said. “There are so many questions because

there is such a variation in technique. He is not doing a linear progression, he is

bouncing back and forth – attacking one thing and then discarding it, taking it up again

10 years later. It is really difficult to figure out.”

The idea of a major late Rembrandt show has been around for 20 years, since a big

exhibition at the National Gallery when curators talked about the relative lack of in-

depth study into his late works.

One reason it has taken so long is that the Rijksmuseum has been being redeveloped for

10 years.

There will be about 90 works – 40 paintings, 30 prints and 20 drawings – and visitors

may well find him exasperatingly idiosyncratic.

“Some days I love Rembrandt; some days I want to kick his ass,” said Wieseman. “It is

19-4-2015 Rembrandt late gem to be shown in UK first time | Art and design | The Guardian

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challenging to get inside his head and figure out what he was trying to do ... but very

rewarding.”

Rembrandt: The Late Works is at the National Gallery, London, from 15 October to

18 January 2015

19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 1/5

Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see thisshow'

Rembrandt: The Late Works at the National Gallery contains a staggering number ofmasterpieces, says Mark Hudson

By Mark Hudson

12:05PM BST 13 Oct 2014

Professional criticism and a degree of jadedness go hand in hand. But you’d have to be pretty tired

of art, and probably of life itself, not to get excited at the prospect of seeing 91 Rembrandts.

Indeed, I was running a mental countdown to this exhibition a good week before I got my foot

through the door.

It’s the culmination of a bumper year for artists who achieved ultimate greatness in their final

years. Matisse Cut-Outs was the most popular exhibition in the entire history of Tate, while Late

Turner is still packing them in at Tate Britain. Now at the National we have what promises to be

the crowning glory of this annus mirabilis of “late style”.

Yet with expectation comes a degree of anxiety. Will the curators have secured enough works of

sufficient heft? And does Rembrandt himself carry quite the incontestable weight he once did, or

has Vermeer, long considered the junior partner, hogged the limelight in our perception of the

Dutch Golden Age over the last two decades?

More than that, recent scholarship has given us a more clear-eyed sense of the artist’s alienated

final years. Rembrandt may have been bankrupted, having lost the support of his respectable

burgher audience, and living in sin with his former housekeeper, Hendrickje Stoffels, but the artist

revealed in books such as Simon Schama’s Rembrandt’s Eyes, retained a canny sense of how to

manipulate the viewer. Was the great “humanity” on which his reputation is based, exemplified by

his extraordinary body of self-portraits, the product of painfully candid self-scrutiny, or a

sophisticated, yet essentially sentimental gloss he was able to lay over his images at will?

As if wishing to forestall such doubts, the exhibition hits hard in the first room with four top-notch

self-portraits chronicling the artist’s ageing over the last decade of his life. If the first, from

Washington, slightly overcooks the pathos of the anxiously knit brows, the other three are stunning

– all very well-known works from the Rijksmuseum, National Gallery and Mauritshuis, but no less

19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 2/5

jaw-dropping for that. Yes,

there’s a degree of knowing

theatricality, the sense of him

watching us marvelling at his

depth of feeling, but that’s all

part of what makes them

compelling.

Coming in the wake of a wave

of enthusiasm for the master

illusionist Vermeer, the

exhibition restores a sense of

novelty to Rembrandt’s late

technique. Where Vermeer’s

every last brush-mark is

meticulously blended into the

surface, Rembrandt’s

enjoyment of the fully loaded

brush is everywhere visible, the

sense of exuberant energy

belying his advanced years.

In the massive Conspiracy of the Batavians from Stockholm, the circle of figures is lit from within,

blocking out the source of light, but bathing them in a blazing amber glow so they appear almost

incandescent. If there’s an illustrative, almost naive quality to some of the faces, it’s offset by the

monumentality of the figures and the sheer force of the whole experience. This is one of a number

of works here that set you wondering at the horse-trading that must have gone on to secure them

for the exhibition.

There are a lot of etchings and some superb drawings, all more than worth looking at in their own

right. Most, though, are from the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, and it’s hard to

focus on them when you’ve got major paintings looming around you, such as the Stockholm work,

that you won’t otherwise have the opportunity to see without considerable expense and

inconvenience.

Another such painting is the large Jacob Blessing the Sons of Jacob from Kassel, which veers

19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 3/5

towards the sugary in the faces

of the children, and is patently

unfinished even by the

provisional standards of

Rembrandt’s late work. Yet the

tragic weight of the recumbent

patriarch, contrasting with the

dandyish Joseph standing

beside him, leaves you feeling

that a problematic painting by

Rembrandt is more worthy of

attention than a fully resolved

one by just about anybody else.

Time and again I was reminded

of Rembrandt’s much later

compatriot van Gogh, in the

earthy directness of the vision,

and a compassionate sense of

the physicality of the human

clay. There’s a pasty plainness

to the faces in pendant

portraits of a man and woman,

lent from Washington, but also

a kind of transcendent vitality.

These paintings might appear

masterpieces if they weren’t

hanging near the National

Gallery’s own portraits of

Jacob Trip and his wife

Margaretha de Geer, which

carry the idea of the individual

portrait to a level of daunting, hypnotic brilliance.

A few feet away is one of the greatest of all group portraits, the huge The Syndics of the Drapers’

Guild from the Rijksmuseum, in which the six black-hatted burghers look out at us and beyond us

19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 4/5

with faces that are at once convincing psychological portraits and hauntingly mask-like. Once you

get drawn into the play of their sightlines and the pattern of their stark puritan collars over the

mostly quite dark composition, it takes a real effort of will to drag yourself away.

There are number of secondary

paintings here which under

normal circumstances would

be well worthy of scrutiny,

including two very different

images of the tragic Roman

heroine Lucretia. Indeed, there

are a number of primary works,

notably exquisite portraits of

Rembrandt’s son Titus at his

desk and an elderly woman

reading, which in any other

context would be highlights, but which struggle to get attention beside another of the show’s major

coups, the Portrait of a Couple as Isaac and Rebecca, better known as The Jewish Bride, also from

the Rijksmuseum.

Is there a more frank and intimate depiction of the joy and vulnerability of the matrimonial

moment, as the man lays his hand lovingly on his new wife’s breast and she places her fingers on

his hand? Our attention moves continually between the tender intensity of their expressions and the

sumptuousness of their clothes, the man’s voluminous sleeve captured in thick impasto overlain

with a shimmering golden glaze.

The painting is balanced by the frankly sexy A Woman bathing in a Stream, a private moment

captured in a few economic, yet voluptuous brush strokes, which leads us towards the great erotic

masterpiece of the final room, Bathsheba with King David’s Letter. The thoughtfulness of the face,

musing on the contents of the letter, contrasts with the nakedness of the biblical heroine, embodied

by the golden flesh of Rembrandt’s lover Hendrickje, which we and the artist are given full

opportunity to ogle – the noble and purely carnal aspects of love captured in a masterpiece of

vicarious voyeurism.

In the final corner of the exhibition we see Simeon with the Infant Christ in the Temple, created,

19-4-2015 Rembrandt: The Late Works, National Gallery, review: 'You must see this show' - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/11158594/Rembrandt-Late-Works-National-Gallery.html 5/5

we must assume, in the artist’s

final days, in which form blurs

into an image of startling, yet

largely accidental modernity.

The exhibition makes little

attempt, probably sensibly, to

chart the progress of

Rembrandt’s deterioration

towards that point. The rooms

are organised thematically, but

texts are confined to the

printed gallery guide, so you

have full opportunity to simply

look at the paintings and enjoy

them in your own way.

This is an exhibition that makes

you realise there is still

validity in the old idea of the

universal masterpiece. I

counted 10, maybe 11, along

with perhaps 20 paintings that are merely superb and a few more that look like generic Rembrandt.

As to which paintings fall into which category, you can make your own mind up, because if you

have any feeling for Rembrandt, for painting or for art of any sort, you must see this show. When it

comes to the great themes of human existence, there is still no one above Rembrandt.

The exhibition runs from Oct 15 – Jan 18. Details here

How we moderate

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2015

19-4-2015 De oude Rembrandt had het lef om vrij te zijn - NRC Handelsblad van zaterdag 7 februari 2015

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Carticle%20class%3D%22nh%22%20style%3D%22box-sizing%3A%20border-box%3B%20display%3A%20block%3B%20… 1/7

De oudeRembrandthad het lefom vrij tezijnRijksmuseum

In zijn latere schilderijen laat

Rembrandt, in een ongekend

losse stijl, vooral zijn sensitieve,

menselijke kant zien. In het

Rijksmuseum hangen

bruiklenen uit de hele wereld.

19-4-2015 De oude Rembrandt had het lef om vrij te zijn - NRC Handelsblad van zaterdag 7 februari 2015

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Carticle%20class%3D%22nh%22%20style%3D%22box-sizing%3A%20border-box%3B%20display%3A%20block%3B%20… 2/7

Door SANDRA SMALLENBURG 7 FEBRUARI 2015

Wat voor man zou Rembrandt zijn geweest? Een betweter of een driftkop, een tedere minnaar, een

zachtaardige vader? Al in de eerste zaal van de tentoonstelling Late Rembrandt in het Rijksmuseum

dringt die vraag zich op. Vanaf drie wanden kijkt de schilder je intens aan en steeds doet zijn blik een

ander karakter vermoeden. Links, op het zelfportret uit 1659 van de National Gallery in Washington,

oogt de kunstenaar een beetje misprijzend, met zijn melancholische ogen en zijn zuinige pruilmondje. Het

middelste doek, Zelfportret als de apostel Paulus (1661) uit het Rijksmuseum, is juist vrolijk en guitig,

alsof Rembrandt ons zojuist iets wijsneuzerigs heeft toegefluisterd. Rechts, op het zelfportret van de

National Gallery in Londen dat hij maakte in zijn sterfjaar 1669, kijkt Rembrandt tevreden en

zelfgenoegzaam – een man die veel heeft bereikt in zijn leven.

Het drietal zelfportretten is een knallende binnenkomer van een fabelachtige blockbuster over de laatste

twintig jaar van Rembrandts leven. Ze zijn niet eens zo groot, deze schilderijen, en ze hangen ver uiteen

aan de donkergrijze wanden van de Philipsvleugel. Maar hun aanwezigheid is zo krachtig dat ze met zijn

drieën met gemak de ruimte vullen. Zoals sommige mensen met hun persoonlijkheid een ruimte kunnen

19-4-2015 De oude Rembrandt had het lef om vrij te zijn - NRC Handelsblad van zaterdag 7 februari 2015

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Carticle%20class%3D%22nh%22%20style%3D%22box-sizing%3A%20border-box%3B%20display%3A%20block%3B%20… 3/7

innemen, zo bezitten deze drie schilderijen een enorm charisma. Het zijn portretten die stralen van

zelfvertrouwen. Dit is een man die lak heeft aan wat anderen van hem denken.

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606-1669) hield geen dagboek bij en schreef geen uitvoerige brieven.

We kijken naar die gezichten van verf alsof we daaraan de gedachten van de maker kunnen aflezen. Late

Rembrandt is een tentoonstelling die de bezoeker uitnodigt om op zoek te gaan naar die onderliggende

emoties. De expositie is ingedeeld in tien thema’s als ‘intimiteit’, ‘innerlijke strijd’, ‘contemplatie’ en

‘verzoening’. „In de laatste jaren van zijn leven gaat het werk van Rembrandt niet meer over actie en

passie”, aldus Gregor Weber, een van de samenstellers van de expositie. „In dat late werk draait het om

verstilling.”

Late Rembrandt. 12 febr t/m 17 mei in het

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Dagelijks 9-17u.

Catalogus 40 euro. Inl: rijksmuseum.nl.

●●●●●

19-4-2015 De oude Rembrandt had het lef om vrij te zijn - NRC Handelsblad van zaterdag 7 februari 2015

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Carticle%20class%3D%22nh%22%20style%3D%22box-sizing%3A%20border-box%3B%20display%3A%20block%3B%20… 4/7

Zelfportret met twee cirkels (1665-1669), Kenwood House, Londen

Dankzij historische documenten weten we dat Rembrandt in die laatste twintig jaar van zijn leven te

maken had met fikse tegenslagen. In 1642 was zijn vrouw Saskia van Uylenburgh overleden en bleef de

kunstenaar alleen achter met zijn eenjarige zoon Titus. In datzelfde jaar had Rembrandt de Nachtwacht

afgeleverd, zijn meest ambitieuze schilderij tot dan toe, daarna stokte zijn productie. Tien jaar lang kwam

er nauwelijks iets uit zijn handen. „Nu zouden we dat een burn-out noemen”, zegt Weber.

Onwettig kindIntussen moest Rembrandt wel de hypotheek aflossen van het immense pand aan de Jodenbreestraat in

Amsterdam, het huidige Rembrandthuis, dat hij in 1639 voor het astronomische bedrag van 13.000

gulden had gekocht. Maar opdrachtgevers waren dun gezaaid in de jaren vijftig. Door de Eerste Engelse

Zeeoorlog (1652-54) liep de Nederlandse economie een flinke dreun op. Dat Rembrandt intussen een

onwettig kind had verwekt bij zijn huishoudster Hendrickje Stoffels, deed zijn reputatie geen goed.

Stoffels werd door de kerkraad aangeklaagd wegens hoererij. En Rembrandt raakte als ‘de kunstenaar

met de losse zeden’ bij opdrachtgevers uit de gratie. Desondanks bleef hij zelf gretig kunst verzamelen. In

1656 werd hij bankroet verklaard en in 1658 werd zijn inboedel per opbod verkocht. Met Titus en

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Hendrickje verhuisde Rembrandt naar een klein huurhuis aan de Rozengracht.

Het getuigt van Rembrandts lef dat hij juist in deze tijd van economische malaise besloot om zich niet te

confirmeren aan de smaak van zijn opdrachtgevers. Halverwege de zeventiende eeuw, was de gladde,

elegante stijl van Anthony van Dyck in de mode en de gepolijste, Franse portretkunst. Maar Rembrandt

keek liever naar de Venetiaanse meester Titiaan, die in zijn late periode veel losser was gaan werken.

Titiaan schilderde in vlekken, die van een afstandje samen een voorstelling vormden, maar die van dichtbij

heel vrij en experimenteel oogden. Ook Rembrandt veranderde in zijn laatste jaren – vanaf circa 1651 –

radicaal van stijl. Zijn kwaststreken werden vrijer en breder, de klodders verf steeds vetter. Hij was

waarschijnlijk de eerste schilder die een paletmes gebruikte. „Het lijkt alsof de verf erop gesmeerd is met

een metselaarstroffel”, schreef Arnold Houbraken smalend over deze late werken, in zijn biografie van

Rembrandt die in 1718 verscheen.

Zijn oorlel bestaat uit een paar

toefjes rood en zijn snor uit een kras

met de achterkant van het penseel.

Hoe revolutionair Rembrandts nieuwe manier van werken was, is goed te zien in de zaal met het thema

‘experimentele techniek’. Hier hangt het imposante Zelfportret met twee cirkels (1665-1669) uit de

collectie van Kenwood House in Londen. Van veraf zie je een schilder met een palet en kwasten in de

hand, maar wanneer je een paar passen naar voren zet, ontdek je dat Rembrandts hand niet meer is dan

een vage bruine vlek. Zijn witte muts bestaat uit twee vegen roomwit, zijn oorlel uit een paar toefjes rood

en zijn snor uit een kras met de achterkant van het penseel. Op het gezicht na, is dit zelfportret in feite één

grote waas. Het is een van de intrigerendste doeken uit Rembrandts oeuvre. Zou het schilderij wellicht

nog niet af zijn en is het daarom zo onuitgewerkt? Of keek Rembrandt juist hoever hij met zijn

experimenten kon gaan? En wat betekenen die twee halve cirkels op de achtergrond? Zijn het

wereldbollen, kabbalistische tekens, of was het misschien een meesterproef waarmee Rembrandt wilde

laten zien hoe feilloos hij uit de losse hand een cirkel tekenen kon? Is dit werk niet gewoon één grote

uiting van bravoure?

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Ook in het schilderij dat tegenover het zelfportret met de cirkels hangt, de adembenemende Lucretia uit

het Minneapolis Institute of Art, heeft Rembrandt al zijn schilderkunstige foefjes uit de kast gehaald. De

mouwen van haar gele mantel lijken wel stukken boomschors, zo ruw is het reliëf van de verf. De witte

zijde van haar jurk bestaat uit korsterige vegen – en toch is het zijde.

Bevangen door schaamteMaar meer nog dan een technisch experiment is dit schilderij een hartverscheurend beeld van een meisje

dat bevangen is door schaamte. Lucretia was een Romeinse heldin die zichzelf van het leven beroofde

nadat ze was verkracht. Rembrandt schilderde haar twee keer, maar deze versie uit 1666 is veruit de

mooiste. De voorstelling toont het moment dat Lucretia haar wanhoopsdaad net heeft uitgevoerd. Tranen

wellen op in haar ogen, en op de plek waar ze zich met een mes in haar buik heeft gestoken, begint het

bloed door haar witte jurk te sijpelen. Er zijn weinig schilders die het moment van sterven zo mooi en zo

ingetogen hebben weergegeven. Het is alsof je de kleur ter plekke uit Lucretia’s gezicht ziet trekken. Ze

zoekt naar houvast en grijpt zich vast aan een koord. Eén tel later en ze zal op de vloer ineenzakken.

Ook naar dit schilderij kun je niet kijken zonder aan Rembrandts persoonlijke tragedies te denken. In het

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gezicht van Lucretia zijn de gelaatstrekken van zijn geliefde Hendrickje te herkennen, die drie jaar eerder

was overleden, vermoedelijk aan de pest. Dit weergaloze schilderij is vooral een eerbetoon aan haar.

Hiermee wilde Rembrandt laten zien dat ze geen hoer was, maar een vrouw om van te houden.

Keer op keer word je op deze tentoonstelling geraakt door die sensitieve, menselijke kant van

Rembrandt. Je ziet die in de tederheid waarmee echtelieden elkaar begluren, in de hand op een borst in

het voor Nederlanders zo bekende schilderij De Joodse Bruid. Maar je ziet het ook in datzelfde gebaar

van een peuter die de borst van haar moeder beroert, op hetFamilieportret (circa 1665) uit

Braunschweig, het enige gezinsportret dat van Rembrandt bekend is. Mensen zijn met elkaar in contact,

ze communiceren met elkaar, er is veel onderlinge genegenheid. Vergelijk dat maar eens met andere

groepsportretten uit de zeventiende eeuw – die zijn zo veel stijver en statiger.

Gebeeldhouwde mouwAlleen al het zien van de combinatie van die twee schilderijen,De Joodse Bruid en het Familieportret, is

een bezoek aan deze tentoonstelling waard. Het schilderij uit Braunschweig is voor het eerst in zeventig

jaar uitgeleend, en de kans is groot dat dit de enige keer is dat de werken ooit nog naast elkaar hangen.

Natuurlijk, je kunt ze bekijken in de fraaie catalogus, waarin veel wordt ingezoomd op de details van de

schilderijen. Maar dan zie je niet hoe het daglicht de mouw streelt van de bruidegom vanDe Joodse

Bruid, die wel gebeeldhouwd lijkt. Alleen wanneer je er met je neus op staat, valt je op dat het kanten

manchet van de moeder op het Familieportret ruw en blokkerig is geschilderd, als het spoor van een

tractor in de verse sneeuw. Dan zie je ook dat de jurk van het middelste kind niet groen is, maar bestaat

uit ongemengde streken geel en blauw die Rembrandt met zijn paletmes uitsmeerde – precies zoals de

Duitse schilder Gerhard Richter hem dat driehonderd jaar later na zou doen.

Alleen hier, staand in het Rijksmuseum, omringd door meer Rembrandts dan je ooit bij elkaar hebt

gezien, ervaar je die sensatie. En besef je dat Rembrandt juist op zijn oude dag zijn tijd ver, ver vooruit

was.

Een versie van dit artikel verscheen op zaterdag 7 februari

2015 in NRC Handelsblad.

Op dit artikel rust auteursrecht van NRC Media BV,

respectievelijk van de oorspronkelijke auteur.