In the university town of Leiden, The Netherlands, 350 years ago this week, a prosperous miller and his wife celebrated the birth of a son destined to tower over the painters of the northern Renaissance as Leonardo da Vinci towered over the masters of the Italian Renaissance. To mark the anniversary, Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum (State Museum) is staging an exhibition of 100 of the greatest paintings and 123 etchings by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, chosen from 63 collections, including Leningrad's world-famous Hermitage (see color pages). At the same time, Rotterdam's Boymans Museum is exhibiting 268 of Rembrandt's drawings. Best testimony to Rembrandt's enduring attraction: the record-breaking crowds of more than 140,000 European and U.S. tourists who have visited the painting exhibit in its first seven weeks.
One of the reasons for Rembrandt's continuing appeal is that he inhabits a world in which modern man can still find his bearings. Leonardo da Vinci, born 154 years earlier, raised painters to the level of princes, held court while he worked to the accompaniment of music and brilliant conversation; his Venuses were meant to grace Olympian festivals. Rembrandt, whose parents saw to it that he got a good Latin-school education, plus a taste of university life, preferred the company of his sturdy Dutch countrymen. He once chose to paint his bride Saskia in the trappings of classic mythology, but the result (opposite), now owned by Leningrad's Hermitage, is basically a plain young Dutch girl, garlanded with field flowers and dressed in the rich, show-off satins and brocades that so delighted Rembrandt at Amsterdam's public auctions.
Molten Light. Rembrandt's early popularity among his countrymen (who were to spurn the full flowering of his genius) was solidly rooted in the artistic techniques of both Italy and northern Europe. His early teacher in Leiden had studied in Italy, there learned Caravaggio's trick of sharply contrasting light and shadow, to make light itself the most dramatic element in the picture. Rembrandt's painting, Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, done when the artist was only 24, already shows both Rembrandt's love of Biblical subjects and the virtuoso control of light that gives his oils the intensity of molten gold.
Rembrandt also inherited a hardy tradition of Dutch portrait painting. His achievement was to take the stiff, official portrait, change it into a dramatic scene, filled with inner excitement that holds the spectator's eye even today. His first great success. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, done when he was only 26, established him as one of the foremost painters of Amsterdam, and brought him a flood of portrait commissions from the city's wealthy burghers.
To the Bible. Like many, a Dutch townsman who struck it rich, Rembrandt splurged wildly, bought up collections of armor and costumes that he could use as painting props, moved into a palatial house on the edge of Amsterdam's Jewish Quarter. His drawings and etchings spread his fame the breadth of Europe. But his years of commercial success began to wane when his masterpiece, Captain Banning Cocq's Shooting Company (known as The Night Watch before its recent cleaning revealed a late-afternoon scene), met with disapproval from patrons who found themselves lost in the parade.