Exhibitions
Rembrandt: the Master and His Workshop (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: drawings till 19 January, paintings and etchings till 1 March)
Past master
Giles Auty
In the face of one of the great masters of the 17th century, it is hard not to reflect on the betrayal during our time of our own culture. With Rembrandt we are not just in the presence of a masterly artist but of a masterly artistic intelligence. How sad that we no longer see the two as inseparable. If nothing else could, the recent incoherent mumblings of much-vaunted young artists taking part in Channel 4's film about this year's Turner Prize must alert us that something has gone very wrong with much of our contemporary artistic thinking as well as practice. It is hard enough to be a good artist — or anything else, for that matter — even if you are quite clear what you are doing. Those who have little or no idea end up, fairly predictably, relying largely on chance to assist them in their inchoate splatterings. How far we seem to have regressed in just three and a half cen- turies.
Amsterdam is a city which lends itself particularly well to bright, frosty days and evenings and it is hard to imagine a more pleasant and reassuring way to end any year than in the presence of the humane genius of Rembrandt. Like Shakespeare, he had rare insight into the human condi- tion. This gave him the ability to create scenes from both Old and New Testaments with an extraordinary sense of conviction. Thus the earnest faith with which Abraham confronts the terrible sacrifice demanded of him by God is conveyed by Rembrandt with penetrating psychological insight. So, too, is Bathsheba's moment of indecision when faced with a written summons from King David. These are truly timeless human themes and Rembrandt's treatment of them remains no less enduring. To him, Christianity was not some faint, unintelligi- ble myth from a far distant time to be recalled once or perhaps twice a year. His painting of sacred subject matter has much of the palpability of his paintings of the everyday.
Perhaps this reveals Rembrandt's Protes- tantism, for the same is probably less true of his great contemporary Velazquez. Both lived only until their early sixties and were born within seven years of each other. I have spent untold hours of my life debating their respective merits and am no closer now to a conclusion. Leaving the great exhibition of works by Velazquez at the Prado nearly two years ago, I believed I would never be so moved again. I did not think any painter from any period could stand comparison with Velazquez, but now I am less sure. Fifty paintings, 50 drawings and almost as many etchings from Rem- brandt's hand add up to an overwhelming experience. Rembrandt is the warmer artist of the two not just in terms of colour but of spirit.
If painting, as I believe, is one of the supreme conjunctions of the activities of heart, head and hand, it is in the first that Rembrandt seems to me pre-eminent. Where Velazquez painted idealised female form — the `Rokeby' Venus — Rembrandt drew from a deep well of reality. How earthy and alluring his 'Woman at an Open Door' proves. It is likely that she, the model for Bathsheba and many other stud- ies are simply portraits of the artist's mis- tress Henrickje Stoffels. Rembrandt seems to me to have reserved an especially free and warm-hearted approach to the painting of family and intimates, as in his son 'Titus at his Desk', the portrait drawing of Saskia van Uylenburgh on the occasion of his engagement to her and, of course, the great series of drawings and paintings of himself. Yet even his more formal portraits, as of Nicolaes van Bambeeck and Agatha Bas, seem presentations of people one feels one knows. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Rembrandt makes the souls of his sit- ters visible. Of course, in doing so he also reveals himself.
Unlike the great Velazquez exhibition, the current double exhibition of Rem- brandt paintings and works on paper will be coming to London, courtesy of the American Express Foundation, which has underwritten these shows. This happy event takes place on 26 March and is an occasion to which everyone should look forward. Part of the interest of the shows is the inclusion of works by artists who worked with Rembrandt at various times. Needless to say a number of these have been attributed to the hand of the master himself at some time or another, although it is not always easy to see why. At the Rijksmuseum, an illuminating series of videos shows some of the aids present-day scholars can bring to bear in the complex matter of attributions. Yet even these can- not replace the indispensable combination of eye and intuition; the recognition that this or that was the way a particular artist went about his work. Rembrandt's paint- ings are stamped indelibly with his authori- ty and personality. Other hands lack this particular sensibility. When the eye becomes accustomed thoroughly to an artist's distinctive 'handwriting' and facility, questionable areas stand out. Thus there seems something awkward to me, for instance, in areas of the forehead in 'Moses breaking the Tablets' from the Staatliche, Berlin.
Almost the only view I liked was that expressed by Eric Hebborn, author of a recent book about his successful forging of Old Master drawings, that art historians need proper initiation into drawing skills. Scientific apparatus on its own is all too possible to fool. In the end, the eye must be the most reliable instrument and the best way to train it by far is through per- ceptual drawing. Art historians who lack such training tend to like contemporary art which is largely about ideas (e.g. conceptu- al art) or otherwise stuffed stiff with histor- ical reference, for these are the only areas they feel — or are — competent to judge.
Rembrandt's 'Landscape with a Stone Bridge', c. 1638 The glories of Rembrandt's paintings aside, the delights of his drawings and etch- ings would draw me much further than Amsterdam, which is a city I esteem in any case. While lacking largely the acquisitive spirit, there are etchings by Rembrandt I would greatly care to own, since daily examination of such treasures is not only deeply educational but life-affirming. Above all, it is heartening to know that the kind of being capable of making them once walked this earth.
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