Among the great masters of northern European painting, Rembrandt (Leyden 1606 - Amsterdam 1669) is one of the least represented in Spanish collections, including that of the Prado, which only has one autograph work by the artist,
Artemisa of 1634.
For this reason the Prado Museum had decided to organise an exhibition that allowed the public to come closer to the work of this remarkable Dutch artist, considered one of the greatest painters in western art.
Comprising around 35 paintings and 5 prints loaned by 20 European and US museums and collections, the exhibition focused on the figure of Rembrandt as a narrative painter. While he was also a great portrait and landscape painter, Rembrandt's activities as a history painter demonstrate in a particularly clear way how his art derives from the European Renaissance tradition, while also revealing its originality. It is precisely this aspect of Rembrandt's art that best connects and also contrasts with the pictorial tradition represented by the Prado. It was fascinating to see his works alongside those of the various artists who were his principal sources of inspiration, particularly Titian and Rubens, and to compare his response to these sources to those of Velázquez in the same museum, who was also indebted to the same tradition.
The exhibition was arranged chronologically. It presented Rembrandt as a painter of subjects derived from history, religion and classical mythology. With the aim of helping the visitor to appreciate Rembrandt's unique viewpoint on these themes that reflected his vision of the world, the exhibition covers all the various phases of his career. As a young artist Rembrandt focused on the external manifestation of human emotions and sentiments, expressed through highly animated gestures and expressions. During these years his perspective on the world was frequently mocking and jovial. From around 1645 a change in his manner of seeing the world and understanding life is evident in his work. The paintings executed from that date onwards reveal a more interiorised sentiment, imbued with more gravity and conveying a moving sense of moral weight. These are among Rembrandt's most original works.
Among his early works in the exhibition, a particularly notable example was
Saint Peter and Saint Paul loaned by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
Also present were various works from the artist's mature phase such as the monumental
Samson and Delilah from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt.
The artist's most personal phase, corresponding to his late years up to his death in 1669, is represented by various works characteristic of that period including one of his most important late paintings, the
Bathsheba from the Musée du Louvre.
The exhibition ended with
Self-portrait as Zeuxis
from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum-Fondation Corboud in Cologne, painted only five or six years before the artist's death and the last of the self-portraits by a painter particularly obsessed with the representation of his own image. His depiction of himself as Zeuxis, the famous 5th-century BC Greek painter who according to legend died of laughter while painting an old lady, explains the artist's comic smile in this image of himself aged almost 60.
The exhibition also included his
Self-portrait in Oriental Dress, loaned from the Petit Palais in Paris and painted in 1631 when Rembrandt was 25.
More images from the exhibition:
Flora
Jeremiah lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem
The Apostle Bartholomew
The Rape of Europe
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
