Andrew Graham-Dixon on Rembrandt

meet Rembrandt aged 49 bulbous nose drinkers nose and all he's got worried eyes well mighty be worried he's a man in debt he's buried four of his five children and one wife things are on the slide it's a tremendously honest self-portrait a fantastic picture of a man in trouble but what wonderful paintings he created and some of the very best of those paintings are here at the moment in the National Gallery's of Scotland as part of an exhibition exploring the relationship between British artists and collectors and the greatest of all the Dutch painters I thought I'd just pick out some of my own personal favorites from the show first but not necessarily foremost the grandest of the paintings start with a bang Belshazzar faced its part tragedy part panto in the center of the painting we see Belshazzar the ancient king of the Babylonians described in the Book of Daniel his city is under siege and yet he's decided to have an orgy he's surrounded by women not dancing girls but drinking girls but at this moment the moment Rembrandt has chosen to depict the party is coming to an end the hand of God has suddenly written on the wall behind Belshazzar a cryptic message men a men a Tekel upharsin Welsh as I can't read it the prophet Daniel will interpret it for him it means thy kingdom is numbered your world is a tener and he reels back in astonishment the girl next to him spills her wine the others they're all amazed very Rembrandt somehow that he can't quite make it seem as serious as it should you can almost sense the props creaking the actors and actresses feeling uncomfortable in their costume they might all mystery about to burst into laughter from the grandeur and the false grandeur if you like of that picture to something much more intimate a really beautiful picture it's on loan from the van burning and Museum in Rotterdam and it's a portrait a very intimate personal picture of Rembrandt's son Titus at his school books perched at his desk his face trembling with sensitivity you can see how much Rembrandt loved the boy and how sad it was that Titus died like his mother of the plague just a year before Rembrandt himself died but in this painting you've you've got that sense of intimacy between father and son preserved forever against the depredations of time near that painting hangs another one of my favorite Rembrandt's from the Dulwich picture gallery it's his portrait of a girl at a window very mysterious no one knows why Rembrandt painted it was he perhaps familiar with the writings of Leonardo da Vinci who once said that if a painter was in search of subjects he should walk down the street and perhaps see a beautiful girl at a window and painter there's nothing course or or bawdy about the painting she's she's too young to be an object of sexual attraction she's just depicted as a piece of wonderful fresh aliveness one of the most beautifully immediate of all Rembrandt's she was wonderful you feels that she might almost turn and speak to you I'd also like to mention Rembrandt's edgings because there are some fantastic examples of those in the show and Rembrandt for many centuries in Britain particularly was principally known through his etchings his fame was distributed by these reproduced works of art but what things they are they're the hundred gilded print the subject is Christ healing the sick you get this astonishingly powerful sense of the darkness behind Christ and the light to the side of him it's as if those who come to be healed by him are taken from darkness into light they're taken if you like from one type of Engraving effect this cloudiness into another pure line it's a really beautiful thing my other personal favorite is the three trees which is just such a powerful dense small image of apparently nothing at all it's three trees on a hill of view of Amsterdam in the background there's a someone sitting on the hill perhaps an artist's making a sketch there are a pair of lovers almost hidden in the undergrowth there's a wagon and a cart and then these three trees which which always remind me of the three crosses at the time of the crucifixion it's as if Rembrandt has seen something tragic in this in this landscape there's rain on the way this great swathe of rain in the top left-hand side of the print sweeping across the image and I wonder if it's not significant that it was a picture created a year after the death of Saskia his wife so it's as if the world has become dark and tragic how much emotion how much expression Rembrandt manages to squeeze into an image that's really no larger than that they're larger than the cover of a book he really is the man with the the drinkers nose and the worried eyes he really is one of the greatest artists in all of history and really worth exploring you

Channel: nationalgalleries

Views: 17,866

Rating: 4.9233227 out of 5

Keywords: rembrandt, art, dutch, andrew graham dixon, painting, Old Master, Titus, rembrandt van rijn, rembrandt paintings, andrew graham dixon rembrandt, scotland, scottish national gallery, national galleries of scotland, edinburgh, favourite rembrandt paintings, graham dixon, andrew graham dixon on rembrandt, art history, art historical, dutch art, netherlands, draughtsman, old masters, old masters painting, art historian

Id: jO8I18reYLI

Length: 6min 50sec (410 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 09 2018