Dali House

A quadracentennial Rembrandt relapse, second of three parts

A little more biography, then, but first, the painting above. “Belshazzar’s Feast” from 1635 was Rembrandt trying to get on the A-list of baroque historian-artists who did mammoth canvases, and he really went for it.

From the Book of Daniel he pulled the moment when the King of Babylon adds the fatal last straw to his bulging hoard of sins by drinking wine from the cups stolen from Jerusalem’s temple. The writing is on the wall, and though Rembrandt inscribed the Hebrew in columns rather than right to left, likely in a comment on its age and its indecipherability to all but the prophet Daniel, the message was clear: “Get out of town by sundown.” Belshazzar did better than that: He was murdered within hours.

With Caravaggio’s dramatic lighting effects and a passionate cha-cha of chiaroscuro, Rembrandt clad his operatic cast in anachronistic but sublimely rendered togs, every gem and tassel a subtle craftwork. And rarely do you find him so flamboyant in his facial expressions.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on July 15, 400 years ago, in Leiden. Unless you’re Dutch it’s a funny middle name, but a fun one, and anyway his dad’s was Gerritszoon, and mom was Neeltje van Suijttbroeck, so it was family of sound effects, and he painted them often.

The house where he was born no longer stands, which must be due to either World War II or a rare oversight by the Dutch authorities, who seem to have preserved everything else from Rembrandt’s day. The building now occupying the site does have a plaque that says something like, “Yep, this is it.” A Google Earth snapshot of the neighbourhood is shown here.

Rembo, as he hated to be called, was the eighth of nine children (or was it, the beancounters can’t agree, seven or 10 children?) but he was the only son sent to school, straight through university and straight into apprenticeship.

Rembrandt as he saw himself in the 1620s and in 1669: faithful to the same barber all his life.

In 1625 Rembrandt and his pal Jan Lievens, still both only 19, opened their own studio in Leiden, the former whipping out historical paintings like he’d been taught, but he was always staring at people and soon got into the lucrative portrait business big time, and if there was no one else around he stared at himself – he did more than 100 self-portraits over the years. Jan Lievens was never heard from again in this essay, but he’s famous enough for Wikipedia; have a look.

Major patronage fell into Rembrandt’s lap in the form of Constantijn Huygens, the local governor’s secretary, who started chucking commissions his way, two results of which were eventually purchased by the freaking King of England, who, according to the creepy old British Monarchs commemorative plate on the Dali House wall, would have been Charles I.

In 1630 Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, conveniently boarding at the house of an art dealer. He did very well indeed, always busy, and within four years had his own students and apprentices, some of whom were good enough to keep buyers and scholars confused for the next 400 years.

He did find time to marry Saskia van Uylenburgh, his landlord’s niece and the daughter of wealth to boot, though they were, like, totally in love. They moved to something called Nieuwe Doelenstraat, then to Zwanenburgerstraat, but within five years he could afford a swell house on Jodenbreestraat. This is now the Rembrandthouse, teeming with visitors with wildly varying levels of interest in the former occupant.

Museum Het Rembrandthuis looks pretty much the same today, inside and out. Of prime gawking allure are Rembrandt’s studio and his “curiosity cabinet”, a room jammed with, er, curiosities, including stuffed animals and “unusual weapons”. The city bought the place for the artist’s 300th birthday, a century ago. The website is here.

Where was Rembrandt on January 16, 1632? He was among the eager paying audience watching a corpse getting pulled apart. His famous painting “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicholaes Tulp” (a detail here) was the result.

Tulp was Amsterdam’s City Anatomist, and once a year the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons had a hot-ticket cuttin’-up party. Anyone who was anyone was there.

Tulp’s co-star was the rather startled-looking Aris Kindt, a convicted armed robber who was executed by strangling earlier that day. The spectators, some of whom would have paid Rembrandt to put them in his picture, were getting a close-up look at the actual workings of the actual arm used to commit the actual robbery.

Meanwhile, back at the Rembrandthuis, the master and Saskia had four children, but only Titus, born in 1641, made it past infancy. Alas, Saskia died the following year, prompting the whimsy-minded to speculate that she’d made a pact with God to keep at least one kid alive. The painting “Return of the Prodigal” (detail here) is thought to reflect Rembrandt’s deep love for his only surviving child.

That was also the year he painted “Night Watch”, and this was the last one in which he went for the heavy effects, the external accoutrements of man. From now on it would be the soul of man he sought. Maybe he thought he’d lost his.

Soon a pair of nanny-housekeepers moved in and one of them, Geertge Dircx, caused him nothing but trouble, ultimately dragging him into court in 1649 saying he’d reneged on a promise to marry her. The contrary testimony of Housekeeper #2, Hendrickje Stoffels, ended up sending Geertge to jail for being an jerk, and Rembrandt rewarded her by making her his common-law wife. In ‘54 she gave him a daughter, Cornelia, and the Reformed Church gave her an official reprimand for “living in sin”, which seems presumptuous because neither one of them belonged to the Reformed Church.

Evidently thinking he wasn’t in enough trouble, Rembrandt bought more stuff than he could afford – he was livin’ large – and by some accounts shirked off contractual obligations. The Rembrandthuis website says he was also unwilling or unable to keep up payments on the Rembrandthuis. Thus he earned more court appearances and, despite loads of commissions and sales and income from teaching, he had to declare bankruptcy in ‘56.

His home and all his kit were auctioned off and he moved across the tracks to a rented house at Rozengracht 184, in the grimy Jordaan district where a lot of other hungry artists lived. Hendrickje and Titus opened a shop there and started flogging other people’s art to keep the remaining creditors at bay. Rembrandt stuck to his studio in a backhouse, officially an employee of the shop, though he was still teaching too. There’s a brick on the front of the house today that mentions him.

Hendrichje died in 1663, of plague no less. Titus went in 1668, still only 27, and his daughter, Tita, followed him a year later. I’m not sure if Cornelia hung around, but Rembrandt had soon had enough himself, and on October 4, 1669, at age 63, he too shucked his coil. His score: 600 paintings, 300 etchings and 2,000 drawings.

They stuck him in an unmarked grave on the grounds of Westerkerk, a big old church that’s still very much a-saving souls. Hendrichje and Titus and Tita had preceded him there.

End of story? Not on your Night Watch. Two online accounts I’ve seen say the paupers’ graves were dug up at some point and the bones interred in the church itself, and one of the websites, a charming if wonky guide to Jordaan, claims that, during another housecleaning “a few years ago”, the university of Amsterdam was able to determine which skull was Rembrandt’s. Apart from this site, though, Google knows nothing of this find, preferring instead to show you “Rembrandt skull” earrings on eBay, which I’m guessing are based on his paintings of skulls, not his own skull.

Is that it? No!

The Wikipendulous trivia parade mentions that the Dutch took a vote in 2004 to choose “The Greatest Dutchman”. Rembrandt came in ninth, which wouldn’t have pleased him and certainly not Van Gogh, who was 10th. Ahead of them in the rankings were William of Orange, the microscope guy van Leeuwenhoek, Anne Frank and, at the top of the list, Pim Fortuyn, the popular (obviously) and gay (openly) politician assassinated two years earlier by an animal-rights activist.

History, she’s a bitch.

For a quick grab at most of Rembrandt’s works, check out Olga’s Gallery and/or Artchive.