Mauritshuis Masterpieces by Rembrandt Including The Anatomy Lesson

Mauritshuis, The Hague
Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces
(2)

REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn
The Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
1632
Oil on canvas, 170 x 217 cm

(detail)
1632

Saul and David
c. 1655

Saul and David (detail)
c. 1655

Simeon's Song of Praise,
1631
Oil on panel, 61 x 48 cm

Simeon's Song of Praise(detail)
1631
Oil on panel, 61 x 48 cm

Mauritshuis, The Hague_Picture Gallery, The
Masterpieces (2)
images and text credit www.
Music wav.
created olga.e.
thanks for watching
oes

Simeon's Song of Praise
The painting is a major work dating from the end of Rembrandt's Leiden period. A feature of his style at this time (1630-31) is a liking for elongated figures, diagonal
compositional lines and mysterious, cavernous spaces. In the present scene, Joseph and Mary are in the temple to dedicate their newborn baby Jesus to God, where the child
is recognised by Simeon as the long-awaited Messiah. The old man takes him in his arms and bursts into a song of praise. The divine light that floods Simeon appears to be
shining from the child himself.

Rembrandt began to work as a professional portraitist about 1631. His earliest existing commissioned portraits (Portrait of a Scholar, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg; Portrait of the
Amsterdam Merchant Nicholaas Ruts, Frick Collection, New York) are both of that year. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp of 1632 shows how quickly he surpassed the smooth
technique of the fashionable Amsterdam portraitists. The group portrait of Tulp, appointed 'praelector anatomiae' of Amsterdam's surgeon guild in 1628, and seven of the guild's
members probably established his reputation immediately. All potential clients must have been impressed by the new vitality and pictorial richness he gave to the portraits. The picture
still impresses us today by the dramatic concentration of the figures on Tulp's demonstration of the dissection of a forearm.

The corpse is the focus of the composition, by its intense brightness. From here, the eye of the spectator is led to the illuminated heads of the listeners, whose expressions and
attitudes reflect different degrees of attention, and to the face and hands of Tulp, who is a most convincing representation of a scholar absorbed in his subject. With forceps in his
right hand Tulp holds the muscles and tendons of the arm that control the movement of the hand, while the bent fingers of his left hand demonstrate an aspect of their wondrous
action.
The illusionism is enhanced by the vivid characterization of the individuals as well as by the artist's great power in dramatizing the moment within a coherent group. Without the
strong chiaroscuro and the fine atmospheric quality that is combined with it, the picture would lose its intensity, the sculptural quality of the forms, and all the excitement of the
moment. Here, psychological and pictorial tension combine to create the feeling of an extraordinary event.

Saul and David
The deep human suffering of the tyrant king was never expressed so well as in this work. Rembrandt, the greatest master of rendering the human soul in painting, filtered out of the
twenty-five-hundred-year-old story what he had to say to his own seventeenth century Holland, while at the same time he fashioned a musical solution to spiritual suffering with the use
of an eternal allegory of uplifting influence of artistic beauty.
The life-size bust figures of Saul and David appear in a narrow opening against the dark background. With this composition the painter created the most intimate connection between the
viewer and the figures in the painting. Within the picture, however, there are two strikingly different worlds.
The broken old king, weighed down by his sufferings, turn inward in his lonely torment, no longer raving and ready to attack. His is a faraway look, and he limply holds onto the spear.
With his left hand he wearily draws the blue velvet curtain to hide his sadness dissolving into tears.
The fragile figure of the young David playing the harp is outside the dark circle of this misery. The light bouncing off his white collar and cuffs emphasizes his head, gently bent over his
instrument and his finely formed hands. He is totally involved with his music, which connects the two and unifies them in this, the purest moment of catharsis.
In 1969, the attribution of the painting to Rembrandt was rejected, but after a long period of study and treatment, the painting is once again considered to be an authentic Rembrandt.

Mauritshuis Masterpieces by Rembrandt Including The Anatomy Lesson

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (15)

Similar to Mauritshuis Masterpieces by Rembrandt Including The Anatomy Lesson

Similar to Mauritshuis Masterpieces by Rembrandt Including The Anatomy Lesson (20)

More from guimera

More from guimera (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Mauritshuis Masterpieces by Rembrandt Including The Anatomy Lesson