I recently spent a few days in the Netherlands with my two daughters, and when stopped at Immigration and asked the purpose of my visit I was ab

Edging Toward Japan: In his mind's eye, Rembrandt was always headed toward Japan

submited by

Style Pass

2024-11-23 05:00:02

I recently spent a few days in the Netherlands with my two daughters, and when stopped at Immigration and asked the purpose of my visit I was able to respond, with not great inaccuracy: "Rembrandt, I guess."

I've been on the Rembrandt trail for a few decades and occasionally like to pop in and admire "The Night Watch" or gaze at the works of the other Dutch masters like Vermeer and Franz Hals at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It was a pleasure to introduce these old friends to my 12- and 14-year-old daughters, and as part of our mini tour of Dutch art, we also took a stroll round the Rembrandt House Museum there, somewhere that I had not visited in over 30 years.

The vague outline of Rembrandt's life -- that he had enjoyed great fame and success in his younger years before going out of vogue and suffering a crushing bankruptcy in his fifties -- was familiar to me. But only when you visit the handsome Rembrandt House do you fully appreciate all the peculiar quirks of Rembrandt's life. There is the tiny box bed, located in the ground floor sitting room, where Rembrandt slept with his first wife Saskia -- and then after her death with his partner Hendrickje -- a bed so small that in accordance with the custom of the time the occupants did not lie flat but slept in a crouched position. You are reminded of the agonizing series of familial losses that Rembrandt endured, with first one daughter and then another -- both named Cornelia -- dying not long after birth before a third daughter, still tenaciously called Cornelia, finally survived past infancy. Rembrandt also suffered the deaths of his beloved first wife Saskia, then his partner Hendrickje, and finally his son Titus.

Rembrandt lived in a bustling, cosmopolitan area of Amsterdam where the curators are keen to tell us was "diverse," with both black and Jewish communities. Rembrandt had a front room on the ground floor of the house where he discussed commissions and on the top floor, he had an atelier where he taught students, providing him with a useful income. It was fascinating to learn about the materials Rembrandt used to produce paint pigment -- including dyes derived from berries, beetles and ground cobalt -- and the techniques involved in his profuse production of etchings.