REMBRANDT REMBRANDT HARMENS VAN RIJN, Dutch painter, was born in Leyden on July 15, 16o6. It is only within the past 5o years that we have come to know any thing of his real history. A tissue of fables formerly represented him as ignorant, boorish and avaricious. These fictions, resting on the loose assertions of Houbraken (De Groote Schouburgh, 1718), have been cleared away by the untiring researches of Scheltema and other Dutchmen, notably by C. Vosmaer, whose elaborate work (Rembrandt, sa vie et ses oeuvres, 1868, 2nd ed., 1877) is the basis of our knowledge of the man and of the chronological development of the artist.
Rembrandt was born at No. 3 Weddesteg, on the rampart at Leyden overlooking the Rhine. He was the fourth son of Gerrit Harmens van Rijn, a well-to-do miller. His parents resolved that he should enter a learned profession. With this view he was sent to the Latin School and was enrolled on May 20,1620, as a student of the University at Leyden, but the boy soon determined to be a painter. Accordingly he was placed for three years under Swanenburch, an architectural painter trained in Italy. He then went to Peter Lastman in Amsterdam for six months, after which time he returned to Leyden where he remained from 1626—the date on his earliest picture—to 1631. During the early years of his life at Leyden, Rembrandt seems to have devoted himself entirely to studies, painting and etching the people around him, every pic turesque face and form he could get hold of Life, character, and above all light were the aims of these studies. His mother was a frequent model, and we can trace in her features the strong likeness to her son, especially in the portraits of himself at an advanced age. Eleven portraits of his father are catalogued by Hofstede de Groot. One of his sisters also frequently sat to him. Hofstede de Groot catalogues also 62 existing portraits of himself, most of them painted in youth and in old age.
Rembrandt's earliest pictures were painted at Leyden, from 1627 to 1631. They are chiefly paintings of single figures, as "St. Paul in Prison" and "St. Jerome"; but now and then com positions of several, as "Samson in Prison" and "Presentation in the Temple." The prevailing tone of all these pictures is a
greenish grey, the effect being somewhat cold and heavy. The gallery at Cassel gives us a typical example of his studies of the heads of old men, firm in workmanship and full of detail, the effects of light and shade being carefully thought out. His work was now attracting the attention of lovers of art in the great city of Amsterdam; and, urged by their calls, he removed about 1631 to live and die there. At one bound he leaped into the position of the first portrait painter of the city, and received numerous commissions. During the early years of his residence there are many portraits from his hand, firm and solid in manner and staid in expression. The excellent painter Thomas de Keyser was then in the height of his power, and his influence is to be traced in some of Rembrandt's smaller portraits. Pupils also now flocked to his house in the Bloemgracht, among them Gerard Douw, who was nearly of his own age. The first important work executed by Rembrandt in Amsterdam is "Simeon in the Temple," of The Hague museum, a fine early example of his treatment of light and shade and of his subtle colour. The concentrated light falls on the principal figures while the background is full of mystery. The surface is smooth and enamel-like; the action of light on the mantle of Simeon shows how soon he had felt the magical effect of the play of colour. In the life-sized "Lesson in Anatomy" of 1632 we have the first of the great portrait subjects Tulp the anatomist, the early friend of Rembrandt, discoursing to his seven associates, who are ranged with eager heads round the foreshortened body. The subject had been treated in former years by the Mierevelts, A. Pietersen and others, for the Hall of the Surgeons. But it was reserved for Rembrandt to make it a great picture by the grouping of the expressive portraits and by the completeness of the conception. The colour is quiet and the handling of the brush timid and precise, while the light and shade are somewhat harsh and abrupt. But it is a marvellous picture for a young man of twenty-five, and it is generally accepted as mark ing a new departure in the career of the painter.