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See art in a fresh way. |
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Mini-Tutorial: Rembrandt: Master of Eye Movement |
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A couple of months ago I came
across an interesting passage about Rembrandt in a
Guardian article by the hugely influential art critic,
Robert Hughes. He wrote: "Yet for all that has been written about Rembrandt, we have remarkably little certainty as to what he thought about the domain of his genius, the art of painting. He did not theorise. Or if he did, his ideas about art itself have been lost - except for six words, whose meaning is still disputed by art historians. He aimed in his work, he wrote to one of his patrons, the Stadtholder, who employed his friend Constantijn Huygens, to produce die meeste ende die natureelste beweechlickheyt - the greatest and most natural movement." "But movement of what? The apparent movement of the bodies of the "actors", the figures depicted; or the stirring of the spectator's emotions? We do not know, though it seems more sensible, given the theatrical look and feel of so many of his paintings, to suppose the latter." These alternatives didn't seem quite "right" to me and Hughes did not offer more thoughts to the meaning of movement in Rembrandt's painting. Having studied Rembrandt, since I was 11, I thought I could demonstrate a more plausible alternative.
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Rembrandt is a master of light
but he is also master of vast depth and flawless placement of
people and objects in space.
In the image to the right notice how your eye "moves" from Danae's head back to the sculpted cupid's head, then further back to the servants head, and forward again to Danae's. You might notice that your eye is not moving from side to side but, rather, adjusts with the depth and closeness of each object. It is almost identical to seeing 3d objects in reality.
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Notice the green triangle and
how her hand comes forward closer to us, her shoulder is further
away, and the corner of the pillow is the closest of three
objects to us.
In this work, Rembrandt has created thousands of spatial relationships of landmarks that are consistent to the whole. Think of skiing down a wooded hillside and how your eye instinctually knows the placement and distance of the rocks and trees along your path. Eye movement through depth in painting is not a mere optical trick but serves to, hopefully, give the spectator the exhilarating experience of weaving in, out, and through the universe of painted objects. It is outside the scope of this tutorial to discuss how Rembrandt used blurring, transparency, contrast, and tight focus to accomplish this end. But I look forward to breaking down these techniques for future tutorials. I hope you enjoyed seeing Rembrandt in a fresh way. Michael Newberry
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