Rembrandt in Print
Rembrandt in Print
Author: An Van Camp
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
9781910807330
Pages: 104
Illustrations: 70+ b&w images
7 1/2 x 10 1/4
Paperback
Hailed by most people as the greatest painter of the Dutch Golden Age, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) was also one of the most innovative and experimental printmakers of his century. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Rembrandt did not employ printmakers to produce copies of his paintings for the public. He did this himself, emerging with imaginative new methods worked in with traditional techniques. The results are even more amazing when we note that he was not a trained engraver.
This book covers the step-by-step processes he utilized in his workshop.-- etchings, drypoint prints, the supports he used for them as well as his inscriptions. Here are over 70 of these works, including some wonderful close-up details. The publication is an authoritative, beautifully reproduced resource for the connoisseur as well as the printmaking student.
Rembrandt was extraordinary in creating prints not merely as multiples to be distributed but also as artistic expressions by using the etching printmaking technique for some sketchy compositions. Almost drawing-like in appearance, these images were created by combining spontaneous lines with the artist's remarkable sense for detail.
A keen observer of the life around him, and an unrivaled storyteller, Rembrandt's choice of subjects was wider than most of his contemporaries who depicted historical scenes, important personages or events or the day or selected landscapes. His view includes intense self-portraits with their penetrating gaze; atmospheric views of the Dutch countryside; lifelike beggars he saw on the streets of his native Leiden or later in Amsterdam; intimate family portraits as well as portrayals of wealthy friends; nudes; biblical stories illustrated with numerous figures (sometimes garbed in the historical costumes and surrounded by the antiquities he had purchased). We cannot be sure of his sense of humor but a pairing of straight-on portraits of father and son, Thomas and Peter Haaringh (entitled Old Haaringh and Young Haaringh) would indicate the sitters were no strangers to Rembrandt's pictorial whims.
Through this selection of prints from the Ashmolean Museum (the museum for the University of Oxford) we look over Rembrandt's shoulder and get to know him more intimately.