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Rembrandt von Rijn painted himself throughout his life.
He became his own best subject. As long as he painted
and no matter how riddled with self doubt, and poverty,
he was always there for himself . Portraiture has a very
special quality. Time spent with a sitter changes the
attitude of first impressions so that time becomes an
important element in the progress of the artist`s perception.
Like any ongoing creative activity and indeed any relationship
between artist and sitter, attitudes are forever changing
according to the nature of the confrontation. What the
artist first sees may well disappear as a new persona
emerges from behind an initial mask of unfamiliarity.
This is my view of portraiture which owes more to animal
instinct than it does to what the eye thinks it sees of
outward appearances.
Photographic realism and a `likeness` are not the essence
of true portraiture unless a fleeting revelation is snatched
from the contours of a face in transition. The paint itself
is also a statement of its own existence as a new object
in its own right. It is subject to its own motivation,
rules and dynamic which an artist can overcome, ignore
or amplify according to ability and mood.
When I confront a portrait by Rembrandt I am first conscious
of the paint, the actual brushstrokes, and only then into
focus come the revelations- Rembrandt`s raw ability to
transform pigment from brush to canvas into living flesh,
nuance, movement and a miraculous presence. If mere likeness
were the criterion of a good portrait then Rembrandt would
now be forgotten. When he painted a picture which we know
as `The Night Watch` commissioned by the Officers of the
City Guard only six of the sixteen figures of `rank and
position` claimed, reluctantly, that their heads resembled
them, and yet he was being paid 100/200? guilders per
head. `Then pay me for six`, he replied, `I was painting
men, soldiers, a company marching out with pride. I was
not painting vain pedants of rank and position, full of
themselves, empty and stupid beneath their big hats`.
He was at the height of his material success, but Saskia,
his beloved wife and muse was dead and his attitude to
mankind was at best a truculent toleration of the society
he still enjoyed to indulge. In Alexander Korda`s biopic
indulgence Rembrandt was played by Charles Laughton who
portrayed Rembrandt as a messianic sage. He may well have
been one. `Every man has a destined path`, he says in
the film, ` It leads him into the wilderness but he must
follow it with head high and a smile on his lips. What
is success?` he murmurs quizzically, wobbling his head
from side to side like a stringless puppet, `A soldier
can measure his success in victories, a merchant in money.
But my world is insubstantial. I live in a beautiful,
blinding , swirling mist. The world can offer me nothing.
What I need is a woman I can call my wife`. Nothing quite
filled the vacuum left by Saskia. Rembrandt and Saskia
had three stillborn children, and Titus, his only surviving
son. Despite her wealth, his earning power and several
students whose families paid well for their tuition, Rembrandt
remained feckless in money matters and extravagant beyond
his means. The state claimed everything he painted like
a pimp with a chronic cocaine habit.
It was a chambermaid, Hendrickje Stoffels who became
the unsuspecting, cataclysmic downfall in Rembrandt`s
life. They fell in love and Geertje Dircx, Rembrandt`s
jealous housekeeper and bedwarmer sued for a broken troth,
accusing Hendricke Stoffels of `practicing whoredom with
the painter Rembrandt`. He continued to spend heavily
and gradually the net closed in to strip him of everything
he possessed including all future work he would ever do.
You must look hard at a Rembrandt portrait. Look hard
at the eyes. They will look back at you and defy your
attempts to understand his secrets. You think that you
understand but the eyes appear to move and the thoughts
behind them have already moved on. His etched self portraits
contributed to his growing reputation, perhaps the first
examples of self-publicity. His burgeoning fame from the
age of twenty onwards did not go unnoticed by Rembrandt..
To personify himself in a self portrait was to capture
that fame and distribute it abroad and transform it into
an icon.
Many of his etchings went through several stages, some
were practically obliterated and reworked on the copper
etching plate creating many versions. The greatest of
these is `The Three Crosses` which demonstrates utterly
that nothing need necessarily ever be finished. Rembrandt
pushes the plate to destruction in his attempts to resolve
the reactions of the figures at the base of the cross
as Christ dies. Each development was sought by collectors
and art lovers in all their states as though each version
were a passing thought to be treasured. And those people
were right. His stages of production were movements in
a thought process and his `unfinished` pictures were intimate
documents on a journey to self-knowledge, all of them
illusions of reality. The `unfinished` state remains one
of Rembrandt`s virtues. The work is finished `when the
master has achieved his intention in it`, according to
one of his students.
His `genre paintings` incorporating a self portrait in
an historical context also ensured a keen market. Two
for the price of one: the artist and his work in one picture.
This was commercial art of the highest order. `The Blinding
of Samson` is a crucial example of satirical potency where
Rembrandt is holding the spear and doing the blinding.
An artistic sick joke maybe, but so exquisitely orchestrated.
All personalised work has been commercial as long as there
have been patrons. Only cave painters painted for pure
and deeply significant reasons. They personified their
subject because they were about to go out and kill it
to eat. Put a line around that which you fear and you
exorcise its power over you. The subject becomes your
victim. You are in control. Sign it and you become a god.
Nobody signed their work before the 15th century and when
they did it transformed a craft into an art. You make
a statement- `this is a unique creation`, and you inform
a latent hunger of something it didn`t know it needed.
An odd misconception persists in portraiture which assumes
that if the subject is not in complete repose then the
intention of the artist is less than serious. Frans Hals
has suffered from this misleading codswallop. The figure
in the The Laughing Cavalier is in transition enjoying
life. The picture became popular and consequently lost
its all important dignity. If you did not exude a vision
of sublime contemplation with a steel rod up your backside
you could not possibly be a serious human being. Rembrandt
was greatly influenced by the artists of the 13th and
14th century Renaissance artists, particularly Leonardo
da Vinci. When Leonardo painted the Last Supper he had
several ideas in mind which he attempted to achieve. The
first was the portrayal of twelve disciples, real men,
ordinary folk, beggars, found in the streets of Milan
around the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazia. These
are not saints, responding to Christ`s disturbing accusation
that `one of you shall betray me`. Their expressions of
shock and disbelief reveal not only the mannerisms of
each individual but their imagined relationship to Christ.
Before Leonardo artists painted figures in repose, even
on horseback, as though movement would betray them as
less than dignified and a patron`s desire for self-aggrandisement
would be forfeited. Ghirlandaio, Giotto, Brunelleschi,
their figures are magnificent but unreal, static, formal
projections.
Leonardo captured a moment, emotionally charged, the
first snapshot. Real people expressing natural feelings.
Secondly, the painting was on the end wall of the monastery`s
refectory, and in fact an extension of it`s architecture,
the first Trompe l`oeil painting. Its presence blessed
the monks with the distinct impression that they were
actually eating supper each evening with their Lord. His
followers had come up from the streets as they must have
done in biblical times. As radical an idea as any I can
think of.
Rembrandt realised the message all too well as his early
etchings demonstrate. Using himself as a model he would
dress as a beggar and experiment with a variety of defiant
gestures, open mouths, grimacing, quizzical, angry, shouting
from the image surface as though breaking out from the
confines of the print. His use of beggars which he would
have pose for him dressed as a king or a prince gave Rembrandt
an untouchable power over the reality of his impoverishment.
It also expressed a disdain for his clients, the wealthy
who used artists to present an elevated image of themselves
and overcome their own private sense of crippling insecurity.
He knew this as well as he knew himself. He would dress
in the finest clothes and look out to defy a world that
was as bankrupt as he was. When he could no longer afford
to hire a beggar he resolutely became his own model and
ultimately his finest subject. Not only did he know exclusively
how he felt inside, he could express it intimately. The
predicament would have suited his rebellious nature and
poignantly held at bay the growing fears of his own mortality
and his progressively worsening poverty. By this time
Hendricke too was dead, and his son Titus, at the age
of twenty seven. Rembrandt was alone and all youthful
games were over.
But the range of his abilities never appeared to desert
him and the later self portraits (1658 and 1661 particularly)
are as brutal a record of life in decline as any have
inflicted upon themselves in the name of art. Remarkably,
the subject was in complete control of his own constant
bombardment. Metamorphosis from middle-aged defiance to
tragic victim of life was never more persistent and merciless.
The ageing process is demonstrated and stripped of any
sentiment allowing Rembrandt to do what no other painter
in history has achieved. The likeness is immaterial; the
ruthless, living paint and its testament is paramount.
And finally, it is not the wearing of kingly attire which
lends dignity and grace to his presence in the pictures
but the magnificent sacrifice of himself to the acute
scrutiny of his own gaze, and ultimately to ours. Ironically,
and blissfully, the later self portraits are masterpieces
of observed wretched humanity frozen in time. Rembrandt
defeated nature`s gargantuan disregard for circumstance
and putrefaction and leaves us a legacy of monumental
immortality.
--------------------Ralph STEADMAN: Copyright © 27th
May 1999. All Rights Reserved
ADDENDA:
Whilst I have been writing this appreciation I was overcome
by a desire to do my own self-portrait. It is only a kind
of likeness. I was discouraged from attempting a `Rembrandt`
by my beloved art teacher, Leslie RICHARDSON. We attend
all art exhibitions together and banter through some of
the greatest and most diverse work that has ever been
done. `Just do yourself, by yourself. Don't try Rembrandt`,
he said, `or I shall be very disappointed`. I hope I understood
what he meant and as I painted, his words kept reminding
me of my quest and my dilemma. I worked through video
film, TV monitors, a Leica camera, some weird morphing
gismo on a computer and any other device that would help
me to avoid `a Rembrandt`. I recorded the portrait`s development
on a digital camera, constantly dissolving through from
one version to the next. The result is a frightening evolution
through stages of complete loss of control to a final
sense that only I could possibly know: ` that it is finished
because I have achieved my intention in it`. It will become
my portrait of Dorian Gray. The portrait`s features will
age and express my own degenerate lifestyle as I myself
remain doggedly innocent and blameless on life`s precarious
journey towards a triumphant future. I will look forever
young, I will sing and make light of our millenial predicament.
I will gather around myself only those loved ones who
will sing my praises and I will damn in an agreeable and
moderate tone, those who would curse me from the depths
of their own bitter circumstance. In this mood do I estimate
the power of portraiture.
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