61. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Philosopher Meditating, 1632.

Oil on wood, 28 x 34 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

 

 

At the start, Rembrandt had a difficult time in Amsterdam because his style did not coincide with that which was popular. The best of the Amsterdam portraitists was Thomas de Keyser, who in his works achieved the impression of full, powerful living truth. This style had its effect on Rembrandt for several years. One of Keyser’s main works, painted to honour the arrival of Maria de’ Medici in 1638, was the Meeting of the Amsterdam Burgomasters; this work is on the same level as some similar works by Rembrandt.

Rembrandt continuously sought to outdo De Keyser. In this Rembrandt succeeded, when he was commissioned by the Amsterdam surgeons’ guild to paint its officers at an anatomy lecture by Dr. Tulp in front of a corpse. This picture, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632), Rembrandt’s first big work in Amsterdam, is reputed to have acted as an artistic revelation, because no artist had ever dared to disobey all academic rules and to trust the success of his work solely to the play of light. Rembrandt, under preservation of his artistic principles, also agreed to the requirements of his client for absolute portrait truthfulness. How, despite this requirement, he was still able to adhere to the freedom of artistic movement, is illustrated by the very lively almost snapshot-like likeness of the so-called Shipbuilder Jan Rijkens and his Wife Griet Jans (1633). This applies also to the picture painted eight years later, The Mennonite Minister Cornelis Claesz Anslo in Conversation with his Wife, Aaltje.