Rembrandt

Pen Jen's Inkwell Podcast

A world-famous painter reveals his methods and encourages artists to paint with truth and light and to value each individual with all their strengths and weaknesses.
Dutch painter Rembrandt introduces himself to his students, saying he wants to teach them everything he knows. As an artist, he understands the human condition which puts him in a unique position to represent it in his work. Rembrandt’s portraits are painted with truth and light, never minimizing a person’s strong points or flaws. When Rembrandt paints himself he shows all his bumps, lumps, imperfections, wrinkles, sags, and bags. Not only does Rembrandt show people’s humanness in his portraits, but he also focuses on the eyes of the subject because confronting the viewer in a portrait causes a stronger association with the onlooker.
His self-portraits over time are a visual diary and he picks costumes with flair, comparing his moods and expressions. He also created etchings and drawings. After the financial success in his early years, Rembrandt says he might have been too self-assured. Although many people romanticize his life, he says he suffered heartbreak when he lost his wife and had severe financial trouble in his later years. However, he still painted with common grace for every human.
Rembrandt says historians categorize him in the Golden Age when Baroque style was popular. Along with self-portraits, he tried to make his contemporaries look good in paint. Some of his works include: “Man in the Golden Helmet,” “The Music Party,” “Girl at a Window,” and “Old Man with a Gold Chain.” “The Night Watch” might be his most famous painting. In “The Artist in His Studio” Rembrandt is seen alone, much like how he created. Before Rembrandt leaves, he asks to paint his students’ portraits. He says every life matters, so smile, or have a private thought, but pose for his painting, please. Each person’s image is part of a bigger composition, on Earth as it is in heaven.