Rembrandt | Page 2

PLATE II.--A PORTRAIT OF SASKIA
Rembrandt's portraits of his wife Saskia are distributed fairly equally
throughout the world's great galleries, but this one from the Brera in
Milan is not so well known as most, and on this account it is
reproduced here. It is called "Portrait of a Woman" in the catalogue, but
the features justify the belief that the lady was the painter's wife.]
Alas for these poor biographers, who, had they but taken the trouble to
trust to the pictures rather than to the lies that were current, would have
seen that the artist's life could not have been nearly as bad as they
imagined. Happily, to-day, we have more than the testimony of the
painted canvas, though that would suffice the most of intelligent men.
Further investigation has done a great deal to remove the blemishes
from Rembrandt's name; MM. Vosmaer and Michel have restored it as
though it were a discoloured picture, and those who hail Rembrandt

master may do so without mental reservation. His faults were very
human ones and his merits leave them in the shade.
Rembrandt was born in the pleasant city of Leyden, but it is not easy to
name the precise year. Somewhere between 1604 and 1607 he started
his troubled journey through life, and of his childhood the records are
scanty. Doubtless, his youthful imagination was stirred by the sights of
the city, the barges moving slowly along the canals, the windmills that
were never at rest, the changing chiaroscuro of the flooded,
dyke-seamed land. Perhaps he saw these things with the large eye of
the artist, for he could not have turned to any point of the compass
without finding a picture lying ready for treatment. Even when he was a
little boy the fascination of his surroundings may have been responsible
in part for the fact that he was not an industrious scholar, that he looked
upon reading and writing as rather troublesome accomplishments,
worth less than the labour involved in their acquisition. And yet his
father was a wealthy man, he would seem to have had no occasion to
neglect his studies, and the best one can find to say about these early
years is that they may have been directed badly by those in authority. In
any case, it is well-nigh impossible to make rules for genius. The boy
who sits unmoved at the bottom of his class, the butt of his companions,
the horrible example to whom the master turns when he wishes to point
a moral, may do work in the world that no one among those who
attended the school since its foundation has been able to accomplish
and, if Rembrandt did not satisfy his masters, he was at least paving the
way for accomplishment that is recognised gratefully to-day wherever
art has found a home.
His family soon knew that he had the makings of an artist and, in 1620,
when he could hardly have been more than sixteen, and may have been
considerably less, he left Leyden University for the studio of a
second-rate painter called Jan van Swanenburch. We have no authentic
record of his progress in the studio, but it must have been rapid. He
must have made friends, painted pictures, and attracted attention. At the
end of three years he went to Lastman's studio in Amsterdam, returning
thence to Leyden, where he took Gerard Dou as a pupil. A few years
later, it is not easy to settle these dates on a satisfactory basis, he went

to Amsterdam, and established himself there, because the Dutch capital
was very wealthy and held many patrons of the arts, in spite of the
seemingly endless war that Holland was waging with Spain.
The picture of "St. Paul in Prison" would seem to have been produced
about 1627, but the painter's appearance before the public of
Amsterdam in the guise of an accomplished artist whose work had to
be reckoned with, may be said to have dated from the completion of the
famous "Anatomy Lesson," in 1631 or 1632. At this time he was living
on the Bloemgracht. Rembrandt had painted many portraits when the
picture of the medical men and the cadaver created a great sensation
and, if we remember that he could not have been more than
twenty-seven years old, and may have been no more than twenty-five,
it is not difficult to understand that Amsterdam was stirred from its
usual reserve, and greeted the rising star with enthusiasm. In a few
weeks the entrance to the painter's studio was besieged by people
wishing to sit for their portraits, by pupils who brought 100 florins, no
small sum in those days for the privilege of working for a year in the
master's studio. It may be mentioned here that even in