Rembrandt

Rembrandt married his friend Hendrick's cousin, Saskia van Uylenburgh, in 1634. His wife was the daughter of a lawyer. His family life was marked with several great personal tragedies. Even though his wife gave birth to four children, only one of them survived infancy. His wife too died young, leaving him devastated.

He had a short term relationship with his son’s nurse Geertje Dircx following the death of his wife. Later on he became romantically involved with a much younger woman, Hendrickje Stoffels, who had initially been his maid. This union produced a daughter. Even though the couple did not marry formally, the two were considered legally wed under common law.

In spite of being a successful painter who earned great wealth, Rembrandt was also known for his extravagant and lavish lifestyle which almost drove him to bankruptcy.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, now the Netherlands. His parents were Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuytbrouck, and he was their ninth child. His father worked as a miller and his family was a well-to-do one.

He attended Latin school and is believed to have enrolled at the University of Leiden for his higher studies.

He was interested in the arts from an early age and was apprenticed to a Leiden history painter, Jacob van Swanenburgh, who was renowned for his ability to paint fire and illumination. The influence of this early training period can be observed in many of Rembrandt’s future paintings.

After training under van Swanenburgh for three years, he apprenticed for six months with the painter Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam. Lastman was a famous history painter and under his tutelage Rembrandt learned the skill of placing figures from biblical, historical and allegorical scenes in complex settings. Some sources also suggest that he received training from the painter Joris van Schooten too.

After completing his training, Rembrandt became a professional artist and opened a studio in Leiden in the mid-1620s with the help of a friend and fellow painter, Jan Lievens. He began experimenting with etchings and started painting biblical scenes.

He developed his own unique style of painting light and illumination that made him very famous. His paintings ‘Peter and Paul Disputing’ (1628) and ‘Judas Repentant and Returning the Pieces of Silver’ (1629) are some of the paintings which display his ingenuity in handling the concept of light.

Rembrandt achieved considerable success within a few years of becoming a professional painter and this attracted numerous aspiring painters to his studio who were eager to be trained by the great master. In the late 1620s he began accepting students and Gerrit Dou was one of his early pupils.

Rembrandt became acquainted with the statesman Constantijn Huygens which proved to be quite profitable for the artist. Huygens greatly appreciated Rembrandt’s paintings and starting from 1629, helped the artist in procuring important commissions from the court of The Hague.

Buoyed by his success, Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam in 1631 in order to expand his business. He initially stayed with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, who had a workshop that created portraits and restored paintings. During this time Rembrandt began working as a portraitist for the first time and was praised for the realism in his portraits.

His painting ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ (1632) is a much-discussed one among the medical fraternity. In the oil painting he depicted Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, a famous Dutch surgeon, explaining the musculature of the arm to medical professionals.

His 1642 painting, ‘The Night Watch’ is one of his more ambitious works. Considered to be a world renowned example of Baroque art, the painting is famous for the effective use of light and shadow, and the perception of motion in what would have traditionally been a static military portrait.