Rembrandt, a name that just, it conjures up images
of golden light, deep shadows, and these incredibly
raw human faces. Absolutely. But behind that
mastery of light, there was a life lived almost
entirely in the shadow of, well, debt and personal
tragedy. And that's exactly what we're here for.
Welcome back to The Deep Dive, where we sift
through the sources to give you the context,
the real story, that turns information into understanding.
Today we're taking on Rembrandt Harmanzoon van
Rijn, who is, you could argue, the absolute central
genius of the Dutch Golden Age. And the sources,
they really present this phenomenal conflict.
A conflict, how so? You have an artist who reaches
these unimaginable peaks of fame and success,
but he's constantly, and I mean constantly, being
sabotaged by his own personal chaos and his just
total financial recklessness. That tension is
our mission today. We're not just here to admire
the paintings. We want to try and understand
the man who made them and the sheer amount of
work. It's just staggering. It is. Even after
centuries of scholars debating what's real and
what's not, we're still looking at an estimated
300 paintings, 300 etchings, and hundreds of
drawings. That's not a career. It's an eruption.
It truly was. And what really sets Rembrandt
apart from, you know, almost all of his contemporaries
in the Dutch Republic is his ambition. Because
they were all specialists, right? You painted
ships or you painted flowers. Exactly. The Dutch
art market was all about specialization. But
Rembrandt, he refused to be put in a box. He
did it all. He didn't specialize. He just. consumed
everything he really did he tackled portraits
self -portraits massive historical and biblical
scenes mythological subjects landscapes genre
scenes even animal studies he essentially built
his own artistic universe and that range is the
perfect way in isn't it you can look at an early
portrait and it's so smooth so detailed and then
you see a late work like the return of the prodigal
son and the paint is just it's thick it's almost
like sculpted earth you're watching an artist
reinvent himself time and time again okay let's
unpack this let's trace his journey from a miller's
son to well a self -proclaimed genius our story
starts in the city of leyden in the dutch republic
he was born on july 15 1606 and the sources are
really careful to point out this was not some
story of rags to riches his family was quite
well to do his father was a miller his mother
a baker's daughter solid professions It meant
they had some stability, and maybe more importantly,
they could afford an education for him. A good
education. He went to Latin school, and then
in 1620, he was even enrolled at the University
of Leiden. Which is a big deal. It suggests his
parents had, you know, academic hopes for him,
not just a craftsman's life. But Rembrandt had
other ideas. He pretty quickly decided that his
true calling was painting, so he left the university.
He chose the studio over the lecture hall. And
that desire for technical skill, that's what
drove his early training. He spent three years
with a local painter. Jacob van Swannenberg.
Learning the basics, but the real turning point,
the thing that really shaped him, was a brief,
really intensive six -month period in Amsterdam.
With Peter Lassman. That's the one. In 1625,
Lassman was a history painter known for these
big, dramatic, almost theatrical compositions.
He'd been to Italy, and he brought back that
high drama, that intense light and shadow you
saw in artists like Caravaggio. So Lassman taught
him how to tell a story on a grand scale. In
a way, yes. He taught him how to stage a complex
narrative, and Rembrandt just absorbed it all.
He takes that knowledge back to Leiden, and in
that same year, 1625, he opens his own studio
with his friend, Jan Lievens. And he's immediately
successful. By 1627, he's not just working, he's
taking on students. He's only 21 years old, and
he's already teaching the next generation, including
Jared Dew, who would become a famous master himself.
That speaks to his confidence, doesn't it? But
his momentum really skyrocketed because of one
key connection. Constantine Huygens. Constantine
Huygens, the statesman, the collector, maybe
the most influential cultural figure in the Netherlands
at the time. He basically discovered Rembrandt
and Lievens around 1629. And Huygens wasn't just
a critic. He was the advisor to the royal court.
Precisely. So when Huygens championed him, it
meant commissions. important commissions directly
from the court of The Hague purchased by Prince
Frederick Hendrik himself. So before he's even
25, he's basically validated at the highest level
of Dutch society. He's painting for royalty.
It's an incredible start, which brings us to
a fascinating aha moment, something that reveals
his ambition and it's hidden in plain sight,
his signature. Okay, let's break it down. His
full name is Rembrandt Harmanzoon van Rijn. Harmanzoon
means son of Harman. A patronymic, exactly. And
von Rhein means from the Rhine, which is just
geographic. But how he used those names tells
a story. It really does. If you look at his earliest
works, he signs with just an R or RH for Rembrandt
Harmanzoon. Then he adds an LRHL. L for Leiden.
His hometown. Right. He's documenting his identity,
his family, his origin. But then around 1632,
1633, everything changes. He drops the initials
and he starts signing with just his first name.
But he changes the spelling. He does. He had
been signing Rembrandt. Now he adds a D. Rembrandt.
And that D is silent in Dutch, isn't it? It serves
no purpose phonetically. None whatsoever. It's
purely a visual choice. And scholars are pretty
much united on this. It was a deliberate act
of self -elevation. It was branding. It's a power
move. He's saying, I don't need my father's name.
I don't need my city. I am simply... Rembrandt.
He's putting himself on the same level as the
great Italian masters of the Renaissance. Raphael,
Leonardo, Michelangelo. Exactly. They only needed
one name. It signified a kind of universal, timeless
genius. And here's this young man from Leiden
staking that same claim for himself in the Protestant
North. That is incredibly arrogant. I mean, you
think about the cautious Calvinist culture of
Amsterdam at the time. Wasn't that scene is just
unbelievably pretentious? I'm sure some people
thought so. But you have to remember, the market
was following his lead. The commissions were
flying in. The court was buying his work. Arrogance
gets forgiven when you can back it up. And he
could. So this self -rebranding is really the
prelude to his next big move. It is. Leiden was
great, but the real money, the real center of
the universe was Amsterdam. And by the end of
1631, Rembrandt had moved there. And Amsterdam
in the 1630s is just exploding. It's the engine
of global trade. Fortunes are being made. And
he steps right into that world and becomes the
go -to portrait painter. This is him at the absolute
peak of his commercial success. And his personal
life is flourishing, too. In 1634, he marries
Saskia van Eulenburg. Who was the cousin of his
art dealer, which was a savvy move. A very savvy
move. And the Saskia wasn't just anybody. She
came from a very respected, wealthy family. Her
father had been a burgomaster, a mayor. This
marriage cemented his social standing. That same
year, he becomes an Amsterdam citizen, joins
the guild. He's arrived. And with that arrival
comes a desire for, well, the symbols of success,
specifically a house. A magnificent house. In
1639, they move into this grand, newly modernized
home on the Brest Strat. And this, this is where
the seeds of his future financial disaster are
planted. Because it was expensive. Astronomically
expensive. 13 ,000 guilders. He took out a massive
mortgage that would basically hang over him for
the rest of his life. It was a complete overreach.
His ambition. outran his cash flow. What's really
interesting about that location, though, is that
the Brest route was rapidly becoming the Jewish
quarter of Amsterdam. Yes. And the sources tell
us he was a frequent visitor among his new neighbors,
often seeking models for his Old Testament scenes.
It shows his commitment to a kind of lived in
authenticity for his biblical work. But while
his professional life is soaring, his home life
becomes. Just brutal. The 1640s were incredibly
difficult. He and Saskia had four children, but
three of them died just weeks or months after
they were born. Rhombardus and then two daughters,
both named Cornelia. Just an unimaginable cycle
of hope and loss. Only their fourth child, a
son named Titus, born in 1641, survived into
adulthood. And then the final blow. In 1642,
the very same year he completes his masterpiece,
The Night Watch, Saskia dies. Probably from tuberculosis.
The irony is just staggering. The peak of his
public career coincides exactly with his deepest
personal tragedy. It's heartbreaking. And you
can see that grief in his art. The drawings he
made of Saskia on her sickbed, they're so raw,
so intimate. They are documents of a private
sorrow. After Saskia's death, his personal life
gets very volatile. He needs someone to care
for the infantitis, so he hires a woman named
Gierchi Dirks as a nurse. And she soon became
his lover, but the relationship just completely
fell apart. By 1649, Gyuchi is suing him. For
what? Breach of promise. She claimed he had promised
to marry her. And to add insult to injury, she
pawns a diamond ring he'd given her, a ring that
had once belonged to Saskia. And this is where
we see a really dark side of Rembrandt. A very
dark side. He fights back and he fights dirty.
In 1650, he conspires with Gyuchi's own family
to have her committed to a women's house of correction,
basically a workhouse asylum. He'd had her locked
up. He did. He paid for it. And the records show
he took legal steps to make sure she stayed there
for as long as possible. It's ruthless. He was
protecting his reputation and, crucially, his
finances. While all this legal drama is happening,
he's already moved on. He starts a relationship
with his maid, a younger woman named Hendrick
J. Stoffels. They have a daughter together, also
named Cornelia, in 1654. But they could never
marry. Why not? Money. It always comes back to
money with Rembrandt. Saskia's will stipulated
that if he remarried, he would lose his inheritance
from her trust fund, which was held for their
son, Titus. So he protected his son's inheritance,
but he let Hendrick Jay face the consequences.
He did. The Reformed Church summoned her for
living in sin, for acts of a whore with Rembrandt
the painter. She was publicly shamed and banned
from receiving communion. And all this personal
chaos is happening just as the financial walls
are closing in. By the mid -1650s, that huge
mortgage and his spending habits finally caught
up with him. He was a compulsive collector. Right.
It wasn't just the house. He bought art, prints,
rare books, Roman statues. Yeah. An inventory
of his collection lists over 360 items. He was
trying to buy the entire world. And it drained
him dry. By July 1656, he had no choice. He declared
insolvency. He went to the high court and surrendered
all his assets. It's important to note this wasn't
a forced bankruptcy. It was a legal maneuver
called sessio bonorum. Right. It was a way to
protect himself from being thrown into debtor's
prison. It was a strategic surrender. But the
consequences were still devastating. His magnificent
house was sold at auction. His entire beloved
collection was sold off. He lost everything.
He and his family had to move to a much more
modest, rented apartment. working -class neighborhood
he was stripped bare but here is where you see
this incredible ingenuity in 1660 once the bankruptcy
was all settled hendricky and his son titus formed
a company a dummy corporation a dummy corporation
it was an art dealership and under dutch law
this company then hired rembrandt as an employee
so he was on salary from his own family Exactly.
He was provided with board and lodging by the
business. It was this brilliant legal workaround
that shielded any new income he generated from
his old creditors. He could keep painting, but
the money flowed through the corporation where
it couldn't be seized. It's just incredible to
be able to create art amidst all that. The legal
battles, the deaths, the public humiliation.
It's a testament to his focus. It is. And it's
in this period of supposed ruin that he creates
some of his most profound and moving works. Okay,
so let's get to the art itself. How did he do
it? What was his philosophy? We actually have
a clue from a letter he wrote to that same Constantine
Huygens. It's one of the only times he ever wrote
down his artistic goal. He said he was striving
for the greatest and most natural movement. Which
in Dutch is the meeste en de natuurlijkste bevegelijkheid.
And that word bevegelijkheid, that's the key.
It doesn't just mean physical movement. It's
interpreted as emotion or even the psychological
motive behind an action. So he wasn't interested
in just painting what something looked like.
He wanted to paint what it felt like. Precisely.
He was after the soul of the subject. And his
main tool for that was light, that dramatic contrast
of light and shadow, chiaroscuro. He gets that
from the Italians, like Caravaggio. But he makes
it his own. He uses it to explore the human spirit.
And his presentations are always so alive. He
hated that rigid, formal style you see in so
many Dutch group portraits. He wanted movement.
drama, and a real sense of compassion for people.
He even used his own family as models for these
grand stories. Saskia, Titus, Hendrik V, they
all appear in his biblical and mythological paintings.
He grounds these universal tales in his own intimate
world. It's probably helpful for listeners if
we break down his painting style into, say, three
big phases. That's a great way to look at it.
So phase one is his early smooth manner when
he's enlightened. This is the very fine detailed
work. Manticulous. He's using fine brushes, creating
these incredibly... illusionistic surfaces. He's
showing off his technical skill, painting every
little detail in the lace and the jewelry. It's
almost photographic. Then phase two, the Amsterdam
Baroque of the 1630s. This is when he's at his
most successful and you could say his most theatrical.
He's competing with international superstars
like Rubens. So he's painting these huge, high
contrast, dramatic scenes like the blinding of
Samson, big, bold and full of action. And then
phase three. the late rough manner from the 1650s
onwards. This happens right around the time of
his financial collapse. And it's a radical change.
He completely abandons that fine, detailed style
that was so fashionable. His colors get richer,
deeper, and his brush strokes become thick. pronounced.
He's applying paint in these heavy layers, what
we call impasto. It looks almost like he's sculpting
with paint. He is. The sources say he might have
been looking at the late work of the Venetian
painter Titian, who also used a looser brush,
but Rembrandt takes it to another level. He's
using the visible texture of the paint to create
the illusion of form and space. The paint literally
catches the light. But you have to wonder, this
style was completely out of fashion at the time,
wasn't it? Weren't his clients looking for that
smooth, polished finish? They absolutely were.
Contemporary critics called his late style coarse.
There's an anecdote that he had to tell visitors
not to stand too close to his paintings because
the magic only worked from a distance. So he
was choosing his own artistic path over what
the market wanted. Which is why that dummy corporation
was so brilliant. It gave him the freedom to
paint exactly how he wanted without having to
please a client. Let's talk about the self -portraits.
Because if there's one constant through all these
phases, it's him looking at himself. It's a visual
autobiography, isn't it? Yeah. There are over
40 of them. We see him as a cocky young man,
then a successful master, all the way to this
weathered, incredibly profound old man at the
end of his life. And there's a compositional
trick he uses again and again. Watch for it when
you look at them. He often angles his face so
that the ridge of his nose becomes the dividing
line. The dividing line between light and shadow.
Exactly. One side of the face is brilliantly
lit. The other is in deep shadow. He forces your
eye to that exact point where clarity meets mystery.
It's a way of engineering the light to create
psychological depth. Okay, we can't talk about
Rembrandt without talking about the Night Watch.
It's probably his most famous painting, commissioned
in the early 1640s for a civic militia group.
And it was a complete departure from tradition.
The standard for these militia portraits was...
Well, it was boring. A bunch of guys lined up
in a row, all equally lit. It was a status symbol.
And Rembrandt just blew that up. Instead of a
static lineup, he gives them an action scene.
The captain is giving the order to march. A musket
is being fired. It's chaotic and alive. He's
blending group portraiture with history painting,
which was considered the highest genre of art.
It's incredibly ambitious. We should probably
correct a common misconception, though. It's
not actually set at night. No, it's not. The
name The Night Watch was given to it much, much
later. The dark, gloomy look is just the result
of centuries of dirt and old, yellowed varnish.
It's actually a daytime scene. And it used to
be even bigger, right? Yeah, much bigger. It
was trimmed down on all sides in the 18th century
to fit between two doors in the Amsterdam town
hall. So the composition we see today is actually
a bit off balance from what he originally intended.
His genius wasn't just limited to paint, though.
He was just as revolutionary as a printmaker.
An absolute master of etching. He made prints
for most of his career, right up until his bankruptcy
when he had to sell his printing press. And he
was a true innovator. He wasn't just etching.
He was using other tools, like the burin and
drypoint, to get different effects. He was experimenting
constantly. With the paper he used, he loved
this expensive, warm -toned Japanese paper. And
with the ink itself. He developed a technique
called surface tone. What's that? Instead of
wiping the copper plate perfectly clean before
printing, he would leave a very thin atmospheric
film of ink on the surface. It gives the final
print this incredible richness and moody depth.
It's like the printmaking equivalent of his shadowy
paintings. Yeah, that's a perfect way to put
it. And you see him evolving. His late prints,
like the three crosses, are just astounding.
He would rework the copper plate over and over
again, creating different states. the same image
in the final version of the three crosses he
plunges the entire scene into this dramatic almost
apocalyptic darkness he just couldn't leave well
enough alone he always had to push it further
and this brings us back to his collecting there's
a fascinating cross -cultural influence in his
later work the asian connection he's interested
in mogul miniatures from india deeply interested.
We have around 23 drawings that he made, copying
these miniatures, studying the costumes, the
figures like Shah Jahan. And you can see that
influence creeping into the exotic dress and
details of his later biblical paintings. His
visual world was truly global. So you have this
artist who is just a sponge. He's taking from
Italian drama, northern realism, Japanese paper,
indie miniatures, and forging it all into something
completely his own. And that complexity, that
constant experimentation, is what makes studying
him today so challenging. This leads us into
the modern scholarship and the science of art.
Right, because with an artist who had such a
large workshop, how do you know what's really
by him and what's by a student? It's a huge problem,
and it's a problem he created. He encouraged
his students to copy his work. That's how they
learned. And sometimes he would touch up a student's
painting and sell it as his own. So you have
a mix of originals, authorized copies, and just...
Very talented followers who mastered his style.
It created a mess, which is why in 1968, a group
of scholars started the Rembrandt Research Project,
or RRP. Their mission was to use modern science
x -rays, pigment analysis, infrared imaging to
try and sort it all out. And their findings.
They sent shockwaves through the art world. They
did. The number of paintings accepted as authentic
Rembrandts was basically cut in half. It went
from over 600 down to around 300. Museums all
over the world had to relabel their prized possessions.
And it created these fascinating controversies.
Like the Polish writer in the Frick collection.
A masterpiece. For centuries, everyone agreed
it was Rembrandt. Then the RRP came along and
suggested it might be by one of his students,
Willem Drost. But the Frick didn't change the
label. They didn't. And since then, the scholarly
consensus has actually swung back, and most experts
now believe it is by Rembrandt after all. It
just shows you that even with all the science,
there's still room for debate. It's not a settled
science. Unlike something like the man with the
golden helmet. That was once one of his most
famous portraits. And now it's almost universally
accepted as being by a very talented follower,
not the master himself. So the process works,
but it's always evolving. New discoveries are
still being made. Let's finish up with where
you can see his work today. Because for the quintessential
Dutch master, his art is surprisingly spread
out. It really is. And you might be surprised
to learn which country holds the most of his
paintings. It's not the Netherlands. It's not.
It's the United States. There are 86 authenticated
Rembrandt paintings in the U .S. thanks to the
huge collecting boom by American industrialists
in the Gilded Age. Followed by Germany, the U
.K., and then his homeland, the Netherlands.
Right. But while the paintings are scattered,
his graphic works, the prints and drawings are
much more concentrated. The big collections are
in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the British
Museum, and the Louvre. And here's one last incredible
detail. As of the 1980s, 79 of his original copper
etching plates still existed. People were still
pulling prints from them in the 19th century.
It just speaks to the enduring power and value
of his physical legacy long after the man himself
was gone, buried in an unmarked, rented grave.
So he started this deep dive with that central
conflict in Rembrandt's life. The unparalleled
artistic genius living side by side with this
chaotic reality of personal tragedy and financial
ruin. And yet it's out of that chaos that his
greatest work emerges. His final self -portraits,
like the one he painted in 1669, the year he
died. They're just masterpieces of psychological
honesty. You're looking at a man who has been
through it all. So here's the final thought for
you to consider. We know his life fell apart
in the 1640s and 50s. And we know that's when
his style shifted to that rough textured manner.
So the question is, was that stylistic change
just an artistic choice? Was he just deciding
to follow the path of an artist like Titian?
Or was it something more? Is that thick, layered,
almost wounded texture of the paint a direct
reflection of his own weathered, burdened, but
ultimately triumphant spirit? Is the physical
texture of his late work inseparable from the
emotional texture of his final years? The years
he spent with nothing left but his genius, signing
his name simply Rembrandt.