Rembrandt's Rise and Fall: The Night Watch, Dozens of Self-Portraits and a Painter Who Lost Everything

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669) was a Dutch painter and printmaker of the Dutch Golden Age, one of the greatest artists in European history, famous for his dramatic use of light and shadow, for The Night Watch, and for an extraordinary series of self-portraits that follow his face from confident youth to troubled old age. Unlike most Dutch painters of his time, who specialised in one type of picture, he painted almost everything: portraits, landscapes, everyday scenes, history, the Bible, mythology and animals.

From Leiden to Amsterdam

Rembrandt was born in Leiden in 1606, the son of a miller. As a boy he attended a Latin school, and in 1620 he enrolled at Leiden University, but he was much more interested in painting and was soon apprenticed to a local painter for three years. In 1625 he opened a studio in Leiden with his friend Jan Lievens and began taking students. At the end of 1631 he moved to Amsterdam, then a booming centre of trade, and quickly found great success as a portrait painter. He never travelled abroad, but learned a great deal from Italian masters and from Dutch artists who had studied in Italy.

Success and Saskia

In Amsterdam Rembrandt lived at first with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, and in 1634 he married the dealer's cousin Saskia. These were his wealthy, fashionable years. He bought a large house, collected art, prints and rare objects, and painted his wife many times. But the couple also suffered great sorrow: three of their children died within weeks of birth, and only their son Titus survived to adulthood. Saskia herself died young, in 1642, the same year Rembrandt finished his most famous group portrait.

The Night Watch

The Night Watch (1642) is a huge group portrait of a company of Amsterdam's civic militia, led by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq. Group portraits usually showed men standing stiffly in rows, but Rembrandt painted the company in motion, as if about to march out, with bright light falling on some figures and others half hidden in shadow. The painting got its popular name later, because its varnish darkened over time; it is actually set in daylight. Today it hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and is one of the most visited paintings in the Netherlands.

Living beyond his means

Despite his success, Rembrandt fell into serious financial trouble. His habit of buying art, prints and curiosities led him to live beyond his means, and he could not keep up payments on his grand house. In the 1650s his possessions were auctioned, including paintings, etching plates and drawings by famous artists, and by February 1658 the house itself had been sold. The family moved to more modest lodgings on the Rozengracht. His companion Hendrickje Stoffels, who had started as his maid, and his son Titus set up a business to protect him from creditors and allow him to keep working.

Faces that tell the truth

Through all these changes, Rembrandt kept painting himself. His self-portraits are not flattering: they show wrinkles, tired eyes and a heavy body as he aged, and they seem to look straight into the viewer with great honesty. Together they form something like an autobiography in paint. He was also one of the greatest etchers in history, using fine lines and deep shadows on small copper plates.

The last years

Rembrandt outlived both Hendrickje and Titus and died in Amsterdam in 1669, poor and out of fashion. Later centuries rediscovered him, and today he is regarded as one of the supreme masters of Western painting. His way of using light to reveal emotion, often called chiaroscuro, has inspired painters, photographers and filmmakers ever since.

Learn with Rembrandt: English phrases

Phrase	Meaning	Example
light and shadow	contrast of bright and dark	Rembrandt was a master of light and shadow.
a self-portrait	a picture an artist makes of himself or herself	He painted many self-portraits.
to live beyond your means	to spend more than you earn	He lived beyond his means.
to go bankrupt	to be unable to pay your debts	The company went bankrupt.
a masterpiece	an artist's best work	The Night Watch is a masterpiece.

Try this: Describe a self-portrait you would paint of yourself in three English sentences, using "light and shadow".