Rembrandt van Rijn and the Dutch Golden Age

1019 Words3 Pages

Rembrandt van Rijn is considered one of the most, if not the most, renowned artist from the Dutch Golden Age. His personal techniques and those he collected others created a successful art career. Through his life, his art evolves. Rembrandt constantly pushed towards something new, some different boundary.

Rembrandt was born in Liedan on July 15, 1606 to a miller, Harmen Gerritsz and a baker’s daughter, Neeltgen van Zuybroeck who had nine or so other children as well. As her grew, before he became a painter, Rembrandt attended Latin school and continued onto the university soon after. His Latin schooling, overall only lasted seven years. A few months later, however, he left Latin school to apprentice to a painted named Jacob Isaacz van Swanenburgh. Swanenburgh had studied in Italy but it was Rembrandt’s next teacher that influenced him a great deal.

In Amsterdam Rembrandt apprenticed to Pieter Lastman for six months or so. This is where he picked up a bulk of his influence. Lastmen painted historical, biblical and mythological scenes. These types of scene were important during the 16th and 17th centuries. Lastman taught Rambrandt his skill with composition, of placing mythological and religious figures in rather complicated scenes. Eventually Rembrandt would come to overshadow Lastman. Rembrandt even used his teacher’s motifs and subjects to use within his own work. An early example of his work during this time is The Stoning of St. Stephen (1625).

The Stoning of St. Stephen is a piece that has dramatic composition however not so much as in what his later works bring. A diagonal line creates what almost feels like two different scenes. The shadow and the light, considering this is a religious scene, could represent evil and...

... middle of paper ...

.... The renowned artist of the Dutch Golden Age worked his way up the ladder in the art world and was soon on top, even if it did not remain so.

The Stoning of St. Stephen

Passion of Christ Collection

The Visitation

The Night Watch

Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer

Works Cited

Kahr, Madlyn. "Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn." Encyclopedia of World Biography.

Detroit: Gale, 1998. Academic OneFile. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CEJ1631005504&v=2.1&u=nysl_sc_alfred&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=7593bcf003597bcb3b0a2a9dfb8c2ecb

"Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition

(2013): 1-2. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Mar. 2014

"Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn." 2014. The Biography Channel website. Mar 5

2014. http://www.biography.com/people/rembrandt-9455125.

Open Document