Born 1606, Died 1669.One of the great Dutch painters and printmakers of the 17th century, Rembrandt van Rijn is best known for his expressive use of light and shadow (also called chiaroscuro) in his many portraits. Raised in Leiden, he studied with Pieter Lastman (1583-1633) in Amsterdam, then returned to Leiden around 1625 and set up shop as a teacher and portrait artist. Sometime between 1630 and 1632 Rembrandt relocated to Amsterdam, where he spent the rest of his career. Though he had his detractors (some of whom considered him coarse and "low born"), Rembrandt was successful and famous during his lifetime, though he fell on financial hard times in his later years. He was a master printer and produced hundreds of group portraits and historical paintings, including The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (1632), The Military Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq (1642) and Aristotle with a Bust of Homer (1653). His portraits -- including a lifelong trail of intriguing and rather frank self-portraits -- reveal his interest in psychological study and continue to be admired as landmarks in Western art. The Military Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq is also known as "The Night Watch" because it was thought the painting depicted a nighttime scene. When the painting was cleaned in the 1940s it became obvious that it depicted a daytime scene... He married Saskia van Ulenburgh (also Uylenburgh) in 1634.   Related Paintings of REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn :. | Christ and the Woman of Samaria | Details of The Sampling Officials of the Amsterdam Drapers' Guild (mk33) | Rape of Ganymede dh | Balaam and his Ass | wearing a costume in the style of over a century earlier. National Gallery |
Related Artists:
Faccini Pietro
Italian Painter, ca.1575-1602
David Teniers
Belgian 1610-1690 David Teniers Gallery Flemish painter. His father, also named David Teniers (1582 ?C 1649), was a painter of primarily religious subjects. The younger Teniers was highly prolific and is best known for his genre scenes of peasant life, many of which were used for tapestry designs in the 18th century. He was brilliant at handling crowd scenes in an open landscape and adept at characterizing his figures with a warm, human, and often humorous touch. As court painter to the archduke Leopold William, he also made many small-scale copies of paintings in the archduke collection; engraved and published as Theatrum Pictorium (1660), they constitute a valuable source as a pictorial inventory of a great 17th-century collection.
BENING, Simon
Flemish Northern Renaissance Manuscript Illuminator, ca.1483-1561 Simon Bening (1483?C1561) was a 16th century miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school, the last major artist of the Netherlandish tradition. Bening was trained in his father Alexander Bening's miniature painting workshop in Ghent. He made his own name after moving to Bruges. His specialty was the book of hours, but by his time these were becoming relatively unfashionable, and only produced for royalty and the very rich. He also created genealogical tables and portable altarpieces on parchment. Many of his finest works are Labours of the Months for Books of Hours which are largely small scale landscapes, at that time a nascent genre of painting. In other respects his style is relatively little developed beyond that of the years before his birth, but his landscapes serve as a link between the 15th century illuminators and Peter Brueghel. His self-portrait and other portraits equally are early examples of the portrait miniature. He served as dean of the calligraphers, booksellers, illuminators, and bookbinders in the Guild of Saint John and Saint Luke. He created books for German rulers, like Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, and royalty like Emperor Charles V and Don Fernando, the Infante of Portugal. The artistic tradition continued in his family. His eldest daughter, Levina Teerlinc, became a miniature painter, mostly of portrait miniatures and another daughter became a dealer in paintings, miniatures, parchment, and silk.