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Rembrandt
by
Rembrandt was not yet forty when desolation settled down upon him.
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Saskia was the mother of five children; four of them had died, and the babe she left, Titus by name, was only eight months old when she passed away.
For six months we find that Rembrandt did very little. He was stunned, and his brain and hand refused to co-operate.
The first commission he undertook was the portrait of the wife of one of the rich merchants of the city. When the work was done, the picture resembled the dead Saskia so much more than it did the sitter that the patron refused to accept it. The artist saw only Saskia and continued to portray her.
But work gave him rest, and he began a series of Biblical studies–serious, sober scenes fitted to his mood. His hand had not lost its cunning, for there is a sureness and individuality shown in his work during the next few years that stamps him as the Master.
But his rivals raised a great clamor against his style. They declared that he trampled on all precedent and scorned the laws on which true art is built. However, he had friends, and they, to help him, went forth and secured the commission–the famous “Night-Watch,” now in the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam.
The production of this fine picture resulted in a comedy of errors, that shaded off into a tragedy for poor Rembrandt. The original commission for this picture came from thirty-seven prominent citizens, who were to share the expense equally among them. The order was for the portraits of the eminent men to appear on one canvas, the subjects to be grouped in an artistic way according to the artist’s own conceit.
Rembrandt studied hard over the matter, as he was not content to execute a picture of a mass of men doing nothing but pose.
It took a year to complete the picture. The canvas shows a band of armed men, marching forth to the defense of the city in response to a sudden night alarm. Two brave men lead the throng and the others shade off into mere Rembrandt shadows, and you only know there are men there by the nodding plumes, banners and spearheads that glisten in the pale light of the torches.
When the picture was unveiled, the rich donors looked for themselves on the canvas, and some looked in vain. Only two men were satisfied, and these were the two who marched in the vanguard.
“Where am I?” demanded a wealthy shipowner of Rembrandt as the canvas was scanned in a vain search for his proud features.
“You see the palace there in the picture, do you not?” asked the artist petulantly.
“Yes, I see that,” was the answer.
“Well, you are behind that palace.”
The company turned on Rembrandt, and forbade the hanging of any more of his pictures in the municipal buildings.
Rembrandt shrugged his shoulders. But as the year passed and orders dropped away, he found how unwise a thing it is to affront the public. Men who owed him refused to pay, and those whom he owed demanded their money.
He continued doggedly on his course.
Some years before he had bought a large house and borrowed money to pay for it, and had further given his note at hand to various merchants and dealers in curios. As long as he was making money no one cared for more than the interest, but now the principal was demanded. So sure had Rembrandt been of his powers that he did not conceive that his income could drop from thirty thousand florins a year to scarcely a fifth of that.
Then his relations with Hendrickje Stoffels had displeased society. She was his housekeeper, servant and model–a woman without education or refinement, we are told. But she was loyal, more than loyal, to Rembrandt: she lived but to serve him and sought to protect his interests in every way. When summoned before the elders of the church to answer for her conduct, she appeared, pleaded guilty and shocked the company by declaring, “I would rather go to Hell with Rembrandt Harmens than play a harp in Heaven, surrounded by such as you!”