Few artists ever profit from overly awed responses, but there are those—Raphael, for instance, or Rothko—whose work contains an element that cries out for, and is somehow amplified by, idealisation. Rembrandt is the opposite. He had an almost animal thirst for the real, complemented by a maverick disregard for accepted conventions of visual beauty. In painting, in drawing and in printmaking, no artist has ever expressed more naturalness, which is why none is diminished quite as much by genius talk, by the kind of piety that short-circuits true feeling.
This is why, when I think of Rembrandt, I try to remember the drawings and etchings that, for centuries, many wished he had never made: the Woman Making Water and Defecating, for instance, or The French Bed, or the Monk in a Cornfield. “Une horreur artistique” was how the first of these, a simple depiction of a woman squatting outdoors, was described in a catalogue of Rembrandt’s graphic work published in 1890. Even today, most surveys of Rembrandt omit all mention of it, as well as of prints such as Monk in a Cornfield, which shows a monk copulating vigorously with a nun.
If you are a subscriber, please log in »
This article is available to subscribers only
Subscribing to Prospect is the most reliable and convenient way to receive the magazine every month, and offers the best value.Subscription Types:
Online
An online subscription offers you complete and unlimited access to the entire website, including our searchable archive of every back issue of Prospect, and a PDF edition of each new issue: all this for just £20 per year. Purchase an online subscription »Renewal
Renew an existing subscription »Institutional access
If you are a library, business organisation or any other large institution that needs a multi-user licence, you can obtain institutional access.
Share
Subscribe to post comments
Print
