Rembrandt: The Late Works at the National Gallery

I enjoyed the Rembrandt exhibition quite a lot more than I expected to. I like Rembrandt quite a lot as a technician, and admire his phenomenal technique and subtlety, and the only reason I don’t count him as amongst my favourite painters is that I don’t tend to connect emotionally with his subject matter. He had a very painful life, losing his wife and son before his own death and struggling badly towards the end with money and falling out of fashion, and his major themes are the aging of the patriarch, the contemplation of death and inner turmoil. Very seldom does he engage with youth, though one of the highlights of this exhibition was the juxtaposition of a sweet daydreaming picture of his son with a rather stunning painting of an older woman in a hood with a book.  

And in fact, this exhibition really tied his work together better than I’d seen it before. In conjunction with the newly-reopened Rijksmuseum, which lent some major pictures, as well as pieces from the States, from Sweden, from the Louvre and numerous etchings and sketches from the Ashmolean and the Fitzwilliam. Thus it was possible to arrange the gallery into strong themes: the famous self-portraits first and foremost, but then interesting thematic groups like experimenting with light, pushing softly against boundaries and dealing with his personal demons. The arrangement did very well at framing the narrative of his life, using less significant pieces to inform the more impressive ones nearby, and there were some stunning pieces beyond those self-portraits, including the National’s prized portrait of a husband and wife where the wife is clearly the empowered one, a fascinating depiction of Alexander the Great and a large equestrian portrait – though while the figure in it was excellent, it must be said that Rembrandt probably avoided equestrian portraits for a reason, and his horse was not very convincing. Similarly, for such a consummate master of faces and poses, I do think he has an odd problem with making forearms look very short – for which foreshortening does not adequately compensate. And his depiction of Joseph accused by Potiphar’s wife was bizarrely dreadful in terms of conveying emotion and drama compared with his other far more subtle and believable paintings. In fact, it seems there’s another version by ‘an assistant’ in Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art with Joseph looking penitent rather than like a drama queen.

But that aside, the gallery was well-designed, informative, clever in terms of its flow and really highlighted Rembrandt’s genius. I like artists who work within the boundaries of the prevailing fashions yet push things in small, subtle but innovative ways, which Rembrandt certainly did. And very few artists can match his ability to evoke textures and the play of light in clever, sparing brushstrokes. It is a real joy when his brushstrokes seem so disassociated and oddly-chosen up close when viewed from a distance perfectly represent the back of an old man’s hand or the gleam on a suit of armour. That shows the genuine genius of an old master, and I have nothing but admiration for his skills.