Rembrandt at the Norton Simon

I was going through old papers and found one I wrote for my Baroque art class.  It is a comparison paper done on two paintings by Rembrandt.  He is one of my favorite artists so enjoy my take on his work! And, if you feel so inclined, visit the Norton Simon and compare them for yourself!

Rembrandt and His Method

    I recently visited the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena where I viewed a painting by Rembrandt van Rijn called Portrait of a Boy which was painted in oil on canvas in 1655-60.  This is an unfinished work which shows the viewer part of the process through which Rembrandt painted and created.  To provide contrast, I chose Maria Trip, also by Rembrandt, painted in 1639 in oil on panel to show a finished product by the same artist. 
    The Norton Simon Museum has a “dog tag” for every piece which also includes a description and short explanation of the work.  For Portrait of a Boy, the plaque reads:
“In its unfinished state, this exceptional picture offers invaluable insight into Rembrandt’s working method.  Over the rich, dark ground, the body and costume have been indicated merely with a few broad, sure brushstrokes.  The collar, hair, and head have been developed further, with layers of scumbles and glazes, while the face, particularly the eyes, has been fully modeled and highly finished.  The child’s face, bathed in an even, frontal light, radiates from the velvety darkness of the background.  This unusually straightforward presentation both reflects and enhances the engaging charm and openness of the ingenuous child, who eagerly presents himself to the viewer.” (Norton Simon Museum)
    Portrait is unfinished which lends an air of mystery to it.  The face has been nearly completed although the rest of the body and the background including what looks to be a falcon or bird of some sort remain only crudely painted in.  There are large slashing lines and and broad texture strokes to delineate where the more finely detailed work would go later.  The falcon is almost unrecognizable; it appears to be just a mass of lines on the boy’s arm.  By observing an unfinished work by Rembrandt, one may begin to understand his painting techniques.  The viewer can see that Rembrandt first faintly outlined approximately where he wanted the piece to sit inside the canvas and then began to work on pieces of it. 
   Rembrandt then would gradually added in more detail and layers of paint to achieve his desired effect.  We can see that he first chose to paint the facial features of the boy which may have been a common practice; by capturing the face first, the artist could then go back to his studio and finish the rest of the piece without having to have the model posing for the entire length of time.
    His color palette in this piece is very muted at this stage; this may have been meant to change at a later time but we shall never know.  The majority of the piece is done in rich dark brown tones with a splash of red in the feather of the hat and in his cheeks and lips.  The brown may have ended up being worked to look like velvet or fur thus the dark tones. 
    The boy’s complexion is very fair and almost angelic in hue.  The boy does not fit within Rembrandt’s signature style of portraiture where the subject is in three quarter profile, as seen in Maria Trip, which then throws part of their features into shadow.  The boy is looking out at the viewer in a full frontal pose and meets our eyes.  It may be that Rembrandt chose to present the child in this way so as to reflect the innocence and charm of a child in contrast to the way adults choose to present themselves to the world.         
    Maria Trip likewise has a muted color palette of browns and golds with the white of the lace collar leading the eye to her face.  She is in the more traditional style of three-quarter view.  However, in contrast to the unfinished painting of Portrait, her clothing and figure are completely outlined and detailed down to the finest stitch of lace on her collar and cuffs.  Rembrandt maintained a softness, almost a "sfumato," around her face and hair although her body is separated from the background of the piece.           
    I chose Maria Trip to compare with Portrait of a Boy due to the fact that it is a completed portrait, and uses the same medium of oil paints.  This painting presents the subject in a three-quarter profile and clearly depicts the rich lace and fabric of her dress.  Also clearly seen within this painting is the furniture used as a prop within the piece.  She is bathed in a similar frontal light to the boy and although it lights her, the background of the painting is still very much ambiguous and in shadow. 
    This may have been the preferred method of Rembrandt during this time for portraiture; choosing to focus on the subject of the painting rather than the setting and background.  Unlike Renaissance painting where the background and setting became almost as important as the subject of the painting itself, Rembrandt has chosen to channel Michelangelo in his treatment of landscape which is one where the artist does almost nothing, possibly some mountains and a sky but not much else is deemed necessary to the piece.        
    The reason I chose these two works is because I felt that Portrait and Maria were able to show at least partially how Rembrandt went about creating a figure for a portrait and how he used oil paints to layer and create the various textures and tones needed to accurately depict a subject within their portrait.   
    These two works can be related to one another due to a variety of factors.  One of those is that both are portraits and therefore fall within the same category of painting.  Another relation has to do with the color palette utilized.  Both of these portraits use deep, rich color tones such as red, brown, and gold to show the textures such as velvet, fur, feathers, and lace.  These are also colors which allow the face of the subject to be highlighted without being washed out as it might have been with lighter colors having been used for the background and clothing. 
    Another way in which these two portraits can be related is through the absence of a symbol such as a dog, flower, etc. which were used to convey messages and meaning about the individual.  I find it interesting that neither of these portraits contains any such decipherable symbol and instead, the only truly noticeable figures are those of the people.  
    Portrait of a Boy resonated with me personally because it showed a young child although it was not completed.  Young children were not often painted during this time unless they were royalty due to the high death rate of children.  If children were included within a portrait, it was most often within a family group and frequently a deceased child would be included as well; although it often would have been shadowed or painted in such a way so as to communicate that it was deceased. 
    This painting also caught my attention due to the fact that it was an unfinished painting.  This was somewhat unusual for the time as a painting would have often been painted over to reuse the panel or canvas or it would have been altered for a new commission.  There are still varying theories as to why this painting was left incomplete and who the sitter was.  Whatever the case, it has provided invaluable insight into the methods and workings of one of the greatest painters of the Baroque period and allowed art historians a rare glimpse into the past.   
    To conclude, these paintings are excellent representations of Rembrandt’s style and allow us to see into his mind and technique.  It also gives rise to several questions which art historians have wrestled with such as who the young boy is, why his portrait is unfinished, and why it was kept in that unfinished state?  But for now, this painting provides a clear comparison.  It shows us that Rembrandt truly was a master painter even during the early stages of a work.

Maria Trip, Rembrandt, 1639

Portrait of a Boy, Rembrandt, 1655-60

Works Cited:
R. H. Fuchs:  Dutch Painting, (page 87)

The Beginnings of Change- Courbet

So, one of the classes I am taking this last semester of school is Impressionist Art.  For those that do not know, this is the time period where Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Courbet, and many others produced their greatest works. (Van Gogh was late-post Impressionism).  One of the first artists to pave the way for the true Impressionists was an artist by the name of Gustave Courbet.  I recently wrote a short essay on his works and thought I would share it here....enjoy!


       Courbet is a significant artist within the art history timeline and canon because at a critical point in art, he was one of the first to take a stand against the accepted traditions and rules of the Ecole des Beaux Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris.  Instead, he chose to create paintings which reflected his upbringing in the provincial part of France.  He was concerned with painting life as he encountered it without any alteration to elevate or show it as something it was not.  Those who came to the School of Fine Arts for training always wanted to shed their provincial style, speech, and manners in favor of the fashionable and desirable Parisian lifestyle.  Courbet chose to actively embrace his country style and manners rather than conform and blend in with the crowd.  He wore wooden clogs, rough homespun clothes, drank beer rather than wine, and adopted a Romantic lifestyle where he viewed himself as the tragic hero standing in the face of convention and the Neo-Classicism favored by the School of Fine Arts.  His painting titled The Wounded Man done around 1845 accurately depicts his views at the time of himself as a tragic hero.  This painting is a self-portrait where the figure leans up against a tree after having been defeated in a duel.  He is bleeding from a wound near his heart although he does not appear to be overtly in distress but rather resigned to his fate as he fades away from blood loss.  This was a typically dramatic work in the Romantic style that Courbet embraced towards the beginning of his time in Paris.  However, he soon created/discovered a new movement which more accurately reflected his values and chosen subject matter.  This movement became known as Realism; a movement where life was accurately observed and depicted without attempting to elevate it.  Also, Realism was content with everyday scenes and subjects rather than historical paintings, portraits of kings and queens, etc.  

The Wounded Man, Courbet, 1845

    A prime example of this change from Romanticism to Realism is his painting called The Stonebreakers done around 1849.  In this painting we have a horribly poor man and his son hard at work creating the rubble to be used for roads.  Although their posture and clothing indicate a kind of hopelessness that their situation in life will never change, the father still has pride in his profession as he swings his hammer with a precision born out of years of practice.  The father also retains a wad of tobacco which he freely shares with any passersby.  This unexpected gallantry and generosity is at odds with his situation in life and brings out an area of interest for the piece.  Courbet was fascinated with the mundane of life and painting those who were not deemed worthy subjects by the establishment.

The Stonebreakers, Courbet, 1849

    Perhaps his most famous painting where he flaunted all conventions held by the School of Fine Arts was in his painting titled Burial at Ornans done around 1849-1850.  This painting is of a burial scene near his hometown.  It is not unheard of to paint burial scenes, such as those of monarchs and heads of state, but what Courbet did was create a painting of an unknown everyday burial on a canvas that was usually reserved for the great history paintings like those depicting a famous battle or a scene from Classical Antiquity.  By using such a large canvas for a seemingly unimportant event, Courbet was in essence throwing the hierarchy of genres instituted by the School of Fine Arts out of the window and stating that as an artist; he would decide what was an important even to depict and what was not.  Burial also was a slap in the face to the clergy as his depiction of them within the painting was not flattering at all.  Courbet depicted the figures (clergy included) as having divided attention and not focusing or caring for the departed in any real way.  They are there for appearance’s sake and will go back to their everyday lives without a thought or backward glance once the service has been completed (hopefully swiftly).  Courbet was in essence “calling out” society and the clergy on their false piety and the facade they present to the world.  He wanted people to drop the masks and live as purely and simply as the country folk he depicted.  The final “mark” against this painting by Courbet as far as the Academy and Salon were concerned was the fact that he painted the entire piece with a palette knife rather than traditional brushes.  A palette knife was viewed as merely a tool for mixing paints together; not for composing a piece.

A Burial at Ornans, Courbet, 1849-50

    All these aspects of Courbet’s work and style combined to alienate him from the more traditional among the art world of Paris.  However, his works blazed a trail and allowed artists such as Manet, Monet, Renoir, Caillbotte and others to forge their own paths and bring about an even more radical art movement known as Impressionism.

Introducing....ME

Now that I have this blog, I guess I should start by introducing myself.  Many might know me but I bet there are a number reading this who might not so here it goes.
I am a 24 year old college senior graduating in May with a BA in Art History from California State University Long Beach (GO BEACH!!!!!!) My emphasis has been in Gothic through Baroque art although I also love the Greek and Roman eras.  I am currently working towards finding a job for after graduation where my "unique" skills can be put to use.
The other big part of my life is the fact that I am the oldest of 6 (count 'em, SIX) children.  There are the original "homegrowns" of me, my sister Rachel, and my brother Graham.  However, within the last three years we have doubled the kid count with the twins Henry and Grace, and our soon to be adopted five month old little guy (for now to be known as "Little Man").  They are HARD and at the same time bring so much joy as we watch them grow up and learn.  Our journey with them has been a true testament to the amazing power of God and his unfailing love and control over all. 
Beyond the rambunctious household of six kids, we also have three dogs; Christy a breeder for the program at Guide Dogs of America who is on her last litter, Smith, my sister Rachel's service dog, and Libby; the boss of all who at 20lbs is the old lady of the house and yet still manages to maintain her status in the pack.  There is also Dash our CA desert tortoise who is THE BEST pet ever as he sleeps for almost half the year. =D
So there you have it, me in a nutshell.  Now I'm off to finish writing questions about an article on Moche culture and deciding what Art History tidbit I should post first! Any requests??????

Finally Arrived....Welcome to All!

Well, I have finally joined the blog world.  I have so many diverse interests I couldn't decide on just one to focus on so this will be (per the title); random musings.  I will be posting excerpts of papers I have written, reviews of museum exhibits I visit, and other bits of life that I find interesting.  Come along for the ride; it should be fun!
Thanks and Welcome!
Emily