Description
Oil Painting: Hendrickje Bathing in a River by Harmenszoon van Rijn Rembrandt, 1654. Location: National Gallery, London. Size of the original painting: 24″ x 19″ (61.8 cm x 47 cm)Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (Dutch pronunciation: [?r?mbr?nt ???rm?(n)so?n v?n ?r?in], 15 July 1606[1] – 4 October 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history.[2] His contributions to art came in a period that historians call the Dutch Golden Age. Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, his later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high,[3] and for twenty years he taught many important Dutch painters.[4] Rembrandt’s greatest creative triumphs are exemplified especially in his portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity.[2] In his paintings and prints he exhibited knowledge of classical iconography, which he molded to fit the requirements of his own experience; thus, the depiction of a biblical scene was informed by Rembrandt’s knowledge of the specific text, his assimilation of classical composition, and his observations of Amsterdam’s Jewish population.[5] Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called “one of the great prophets of civilization.”[6]
