Testing times for the Master
Gregory Martin
REMBRANDT: THE MASTER AND HIS WORKSHOP: PAINTINGS edited by Christopher Brown, Jan Kelch and Pieter van Thiel DRAWINGS AND ETCHINGS by Helen Bevers, Peter Schatborn and Barbara Welzel Yale, volumes I and II, boxed set, £60 These two volumes, the catalogue of the Rembrandt exhibition most recently at the National Gallery (paintings and etchings only, the drawings exhibition at the British Museum has its own catalogue), contain a mass of information, liberally illustrated, about the artist and his entourage. Edited by three distinguished specialists in Dutch art, the paintings volume is illumined (if you wish) by the exigent approach of the Rembrandt Research Project — two mem- bers of which contribute to the introduc- tion — and conveys at great length the current state of knowledge in the probably endless search to define the boundaries of Rembrandt's oeuvre.
The chief motor in the burgeoning indus- try of Rembrandt studies since the early 1970s has been the Amsterdam-based Project, whose inspiration stemmed from Horst Gerson's pared down edition of Bredius's pre-war corpus of Rembrandt's paintings. Least adequately dealt with here is a historiography of modern Rembrandt studies, now about a century old. Gerson gave a sympathetic portrayal of Bredius (of whom we can catch glimpses here and of Hofstede de Groot.) More on both these giants (no doubt flawed) and some account of von Bode, not to say Gerson himself, Lugt and Benesch would have been wel- come.
Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to find Bredius's account of his daiscovery in 1897 of the 'Polish Rider' which has a special drama (and a hubristic denouement): a rich, aristocratic owner, recently engaged to the 'ravishing Countess Potocka', a long jour- ney to the castle set in the middle of nowhere in the Polish countryside and a blinding flash of discovery — 'There it hangs! Just one look at it, a few seconds' study. 'The denouement is that while the 'Polish Rider' can hold its own in the mag- nificent long gallery in the Frick, Bredius's certainty is now challenged. The haunting Image of a lone warrior in a bleak landscape is thought not to be by Rem- brandt.
No doubt real Rembrandt discoveries still remain to be made. And no doubt, too, the lucky discoverer will experience that instant flash of recognition described by Bredius. But today, however distinguished the possessor of a sharp intuitive eye, the work of art will be subjected to a depth of physical analysis undreamt of in 1897. Pro- fessor van de Wetering in an introductory chapter describes these new techniques. They include neutron activation autoradio- graphy pioneered in the Metropolitan Museum and analysis of the binding medi- ums used by Rembrandt as developed by the National Gallery. He lays significantly less emphasis, without explanation, on dendrochronological dating of oak sup- ports which was prominently relied on by the Project in its first ten years or so of research.
In fact none of these tests could establish whether Rembrandt was the artist respon- sible. And it turns out that few of the failed contenders for inclusion in his oeuvre are Rembrandt's 'Titus at his desk', 1655 later pastiches but rather works produced in his workshop, which, as Professor Bruyn in his essay on the workshop points out, Rembrandt would have had the right to sell. It has been the purpose of much recent Rembrandt research to establish the authorship of these workshop pictures. Along with 51 authentic Rembrandts slated for inclusion in the exhibition was a small group of works thus attributed.
This section is flawed, as several of the paintings could at no stage have been thought to be by Rembrandt himself. More relevant would have been the inclusion of Rembrandtesque works which have not yet found a new name, for instance those paintings in the National Gallery which are traditionally thought to be by Rembrandt but which still remain anonymous in Dr Brown's recently published and important new edition of the Dutch School catalogue.
Since the publication of Benesch's cata- logue of Rembrandt drawings in the 1950s, the corpus has been winnowed greatly (accompanied by far less of an outcry than when loved paintings have been pushed outside the canon). The account given of Rembrandt's drawings by Peter Schatborn is sober, incisive and concise. There remain the prints, which, since Christopher White's stimulating survey of 1969, have not received the attention they deserve. Even if Rembrandt had made no paintings, we could have hailed his genius by virtue of his prints.
The severe pruning of the corpus of Rembrandt drawings has led Schatborn to believe that he produced far fewer draw- ings than was previously thought and that there must have been times when he drew 'nothing at all or very little', which, given his sublime facility as a draughtsman, is hard to imagine. Schatborn reminds us that some drawings may have been produced to instruct his pupils; and at Darmstadt is a drawing depicting Rembrandt with his pupils drawing from the nude. He and Bruyn discuss drawings which were pro- duced at the same session spent drawing from the life: Rembrandt with Aert de Gelder, Hoogstraaten or the obscure Johannes Raven.
Hoogstraaten was later to write a book on painting in which Rembrandt comes in for some criticism. Nevertheless, van de Wetering in another introductory section penetrates Hoogstraaten's idiosyncratic Dutch in such a way that we seem to hear Rembrandt expounding his views on the practice of his art when executing the 'Night Watch'.
The drawings and prints are often remarkable for their contrasting economy and profusion of means: a few lines with a pen, brush or red chalk convey form and meaning in a drawing, while a multiplicity of scratches with a needle were usually required to express his vision in a drypoint or etching. The approach here to Rem- brandt the painter reflects the master's manner as etcher; the mass of often techni- cal detail on offer requires a tolerant con- centration to master. (One entry also inflicts a nasty shock by preferring the Glasgow 'Man in Armour' to the Gul- benkian variant.) But that is how Rem- brandt scholarship is today.
No one of our generation has written a full biography of Rembrandt embracing the course of his life (about which more is known than of any other artist of the Gold- en Age), his etchings, drawings and paint- ings. Ironically, while there are fewer drawings and paintings now to write about, the complexity that surrounds the study Of his art makes the task more superhuman than ever.
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