An artist from time Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

An artist from time - Essay Example His major interest was human psychology, his portraits and self-portraits exhibiting his penetration of character. Rembrandt was the ninth and the most gifted child of a miller and a baker. After finishing a Latin school he was sent to the university. His inclination to painting made his parents give him in apprenticeship to the local painter Jacob Isaacszoon van Swaneneburg (1619-22). However, Rembrandt got his chief training during the six month (around 1923) of apprenticeship in the studio of Pieter Lastman, the Amsterdam leading painter of biblical, mythological, and historical pictures of that time. Here Rembrandt learnt to draw grand subjects in a broad format, paying careful attention to dramatic gestures, compositional grouping, the details of ancient costumes and setting. It was here that Rembrandt got acquainted with works of the major baroque artists, with their interest to light and shadow and human emotions. The baroque style was characterized with naturalistic illusionism, underlined by dramatic lighting effects, high sense of theatricality, movement of forms and energy. Baroque ar tists strove to make art close and clear to common people. Unlike the Renaissance art with its focus on reason, Baroque paintings represented emotions, capturing the most dramatic points of the action occurring (Heindorff 2006). Rembrandt learnt the art of gesture and light from Elsheimer, Caravaggio, van Honthorst and other representatives of the baroque style. At the age of 22 Rembrandt opened a studio in Leiden, and in 1627 started accepting students. Later in 1631 Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, became a professional portraitist and had students, among whom were most of the future prominent artists of Holland. (Encyclopedia Britannica 2006; Heindorff 2006). Danae, the mythological painting of 1636, relates to the early Amsterdam period in Rembrandt’s career. It was the time when he emulated the baroque style of Rubens. As usual, Rembrandt denied the