REMBRANDT (1606—1669), versatile and prolific Dutch painter and etcher, whose monumental achievement marks the pinnacle of baroque art.,我来为大家科普一下关于伦勃朗是现实主义艺术大师吗 一个磨坊主的儿子是怎么成为画家的?以下内容希望对你有帮助!

伦勃朗是现实主义艺术大师吗 一个磨坊主的儿子是怎么成为画家的

伦勃朗是现实主义艺术大师吗 一个磨坊主的儿子是怎么成为画家的

REMBRANDT (1606—1669), versatile and prolific Dutch painter and etcher, whose monumental achievement marks the pinnacle of baroque art.

伦勃朗(1606年至1669年),多才多艺和多产的荷兰画家与蚀刻画家,他不朽的成就标志着巴洛克艺术的高峰。

Early Life. Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, the son of a miller, was born in Leiden on July 15, 1606. He had six brothers and sisters, some of who died young. He attended the Latin school in Leiden and enrolled at Leiden University in 1620, although he seems not to have completed even his first year there. His generous family permitted him to leave the university and become apprenticed to Leiden’s best-known painter, Jakob van Swanenburgh, with whom he worked for THREE years. In 1624 he moved to Amsterdam—the cultural, political, and economic center of the young Dutch republic—and apprenticed himself to Pieter Lastman, a fashionable painter who, like most other Dutch artists of the time, had lived in Italy and been deeply influenced by the Italian approach to art. Rembrandt stayed with Lastman only months, and there is no recorded reason for his leaving, but by 1625 he was back in Leiden, working with Jan Lievens, Gerard Dou, and Joris van Vliet. That year he began to sign his own works.

早年生活 伦勃朗·哈尔门松·范·赖恩,一位磨坊主的儿子,1606年7月15日生于莱顿。他六个兄弟姐妹,其中一些人早逝。1620年他参加了在莱顿的拉丁语学校并进入了莱顿大学。尽管他似乎连大学的第一年课程都未能完成。但他宽宏大量的家庭允许他离开了大学并成为了莱顿最著名的画家雅各布·范·斯旺伯格的学徒,同他一起学徒了三年。1624,他搬到了阿姆斯特丹---年轻的荷兰共和国文化、政治和经济的中心---并成为了画家彼得·拉斯特曼的学徒,像当时大多数其他荷兰艺术家一样,拉斯特曼曾在意大利生活过,并深受意大利式艺术的影响。伦勃朗同拉斯特曼只待了数月,而且没有记载他离开的原因,但到了1625年他又回到了莱顿,与贾恩·利文斯,杰拉德·道以及约里斯·范·弗利埃特一起工作。那年,他开始在自己的作品上署名。

Years in Amsterdam. The year 1632 was important for Rembrandt, in both loss and gain. His father died, and he moved to Amsterdam. Here he received an assignment that a more solidly established painter would have envied—to do a regents’ piece, one of those great group portraits sponsored by a rising middle class that loved painting and wished to commemorate itself. Nikolaes Pieterszoon (known as Dr. Tulp because there was a tulip carved above his door) was the center of this painting. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (Mauritshuis, The Hague). Its success must have been marked, for Rembrandt’s commissions increased, and he set up a thriving studio for painting and teaching.

在阿姆斯特丹的那些年 1632年对伦勃朗是重要的一年,有失也有得。其父去世,而他搬到了阿姆斯特丹。在那里,他接受了连更有地位的画家都羡慕的一项任务---为董事会的董事画一幅杰出的集体肖像画,它是由热爱绘画并希望纪念自身正在崛起的中产阶级赞助的。尼古劳斯·彼得松(被认为是蒂尔普医生,因为在他的门上刻有一朵郁金香)是这幅画的中心。《蒂尔普医生的解剖课》(海牙莫瑞泰斯美术馆)。它的成功一定是有标志的,因为伦勃朗的佣金增加了,而且他为绘画和教学开设了一家兴旺发达的工作室。

Through an art dealer, Hendrick van Uijlenburgh, Rembrandt met Saskia, Hendrick’s cousin and the daughter of a rich and distinguished Friesland family. They were betrothed in 1633 and married in 1634. In 1639 he bought a mansion on the Jodenbreestraat large enough to house his growing art collection and to give him more space for teaching. He taught assiduously during most of his life and had as apprentices such well-known painters as Ferdinand Bol, Govaert Flinck, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, and Aert de Gelder.

通过一位艺术品商人,亨德里克·范·乌耶伦勃格,伦勃朗遇见了萨斯基亚,亨德里克的侄女,而且是一个富有且显赫的弗里斯兰家族的女儿。1633年他们订婚,并于1634年结婚。1639年他在犹太人居住的宽街购买了一所宅邸,大到足以满足他不断增长的艺术品收藏需求和让他拥有更大的教学空间。在他一生的大部分时间,他都在勤奋地教学和收徒,诸如费迪南德·波尔,霍法尔特·弗林克,赫布兰德·范·德恩·埃克豪特以及阿尔特·格尔德这样著名的画家。

Although he had taken a large mortgage on his house, he continued to collect art avidly, acquiring valuable works by such painters as Jan van Eyck, Peter Paul Rubens, Hercules Seghers, and Adriaen Brouwer. In 1640 he was commissioned to do another regent’ piece, The Sortie of the Company of Captain Banning Cocq (Rijksmuseu, Amsterdam). While he was working on this great group portrait of the civic guardsmen (erroneously known as The Night Watch because smoke and grime had darkened its originally brilliant noontime surface), Saskia was dying. In 1614 his son Titus was born. (Rembrandt’s first THREE children died in infancy.) In 1642, Saskia died at the age of 30.

尽管他用房子抵押了一大笔钱,但他依然热衷于收集艺术品,获得了像画家扬·范·艾克,彼得·保罗·鲁本斯,豪科鲁斯·色格尔斯和阿德里安·布劳威尔画家创作的一些有价值的作品。1640年,他受命绘制另一幅董事会成员的作品《班宁·科克上尉的连队》(阿姆斯特丹国家博物馆)。当时他正在绘制公民卫队这一巨幅群体肖像(由于烟尘使原本画面中午的明亮色彩变得灰暗,被误称为了《夜巡》),而萨斯基亚也快要死了。1614年,他的儿子提图斯出生。(伦勃朗的前三个孩子都死于婴儿期)。1642年,萨斯基亚在三十岁时去世。

When Hendrickje Stoffels, the daughter of an army sergeant, came into his household is not known. She was hired as a maid to help the already ensconced Geertje Direcx, an aging widow who accused Rembrandt of breach of promise and was later confined in an asylum. Sometime after 1645, Hendrickje became Rembrandt’s mistress. In 1655 she bore him a daughter, Cornelia.

亨德里克耶·斯托菲尔斯,一位陆军中士的女儿什么时候来到他家尚不清楚。她是作为女佣来帮助已经安顿下的格尔特耶·迪尔克斯,一位控告伦勃朗毁约,后来被关进一家收容所的年迈寡妇。在1645年后的某时,亨德里克耶成为了伦勃朗的女主人。1655年,她为他生下了一个女儿,科妮莉亚。

Rembrandt’s commissions had decreased, the payments on his mortgage had not been made, and in July 1656 he went into bankruptcy. His history from that time is a tragic one. In 1661 he received a large commission to paint The Conspiracy of Julius Civilis (National Museum, Stockholm) for the Town Hall of Amsterdam, but the picture hung in it allotted place only a few months before it was removed and replaced by an inferior work by Juriaen Ovens. His last large commission came from the Syndics of the Cloth Hall of Amsterdam, and his painting of them, know as De Staalmeesters or The Syndics of the Cloth Hall (Rijksmuseum), was finished in 1662. The contrast between this sun-drenched, warmhearted, carefully perfected work and the eerie, violent, slashing Julius Civilis that preceded it is vast, but there is no indication that the Syndics canvas made a stir in Amsterdam. Rembrandt continued to paint in relative obscurity. Hendrickje died in 1663, and Titus, who had been married in 1667, died in 1668. Rembrandt himself died in Amsterdam the next year on October 4.

伦勃朗的绘画委托在逐渐下降,抵押贷款的支付便没了着落,1656年7月他破产了。从此他的历史就是一段悲剧的历史。1661年,他接受了为阿姆斯特丹市厅《尤利乌斯·西菲利斯的阴谋》绘画的一大笔佣金,但画在指定的地方只挂了几个月就被撤出,并被尤里安·奥芬斯的下乘之作所替代。他的最后一大笔佣金来自《阿姆斯特丹布料工会的理事》是受他们委托而画,被称为《De Staalmeesters》或称为《布料工会的理事》(国家博物馆),于1662年完成。在这幅充满阳光、温情、精心绘制的作品与那怪异、暴力、凶残的《尤利乌斯·西菲利斯的阴谋》形成了鲜明的对比,但没有任何迹象表明《布料工会的理事》这幅画在阿姆斯特丹引起过轰动。伦勃朗继续默默无闻地作画。1663年,亨德里克耶去世,提图斯于1667年结婚,死于1668年。伦勃朗本人于次年10月4日在阿姆斯特丹去世。

Conjectures. Although knowledge of Rembrandt’s life is meager, certain conjectures can be made on the basis of his works. His paintings, etchings, and drawings are so direct and profound in their EXPRESSIVENESS that to mistake their mood or intention is impossible, and they often offer ready implications.

各种推测 尽管对伦勃朗的生平了解不多,但根据他的作品还是可能做出某些推测。他的绘画,蚀刻,以及素描在表现力方面都是如此的直接和深刻,以至于要弄错它们的情绪或意图是不可能的,而且它们通常提供了现成的暗示。

Rembrandt apparently was dissatisfied with Swanenhurgh’s teaching, since he left him for Lastman. It is also possible to conclude that Rembrandt was more devoted to Lastman than Lastman was to him, since, when Lastman’s art collection was sold after his death, it contained not one Rembrandt painting, though Rembrandt’s own collection contained several of Lastmans’s. Lastman’s influence on Rembrandt is obvious: until the bitter year of Saskia’s death, his splendor, movement, and Oriental trappings turn up repeatedly in Rembrandt’s paintings.

伦勃朗显然对斯旺伯格的教学不满意,于是他离开了拉斯特曼教室。因此,我们也可以得出结论,伦勃朗对拉斯特曼要比拉斯特曼对伦勃朗更加专注,因为,虽然伦勃朗自己的收藏包括几幅拉斯特曼的作品,但当拉斯特曼的艺术品收藏在他死后被出售时,却未包含一件伦勃朗的绘画。拉斯特曼对伦勃朗的影响是显而易见的:一直到萨斯基亚痛苦去世的那一年,在伦勃朗的画中都反复出现他的光彩、动感以及东方的装饰。

It is possible that Saskia’s early death turned Rembrandt inward upon himself. Thereafter his portrait work is deeper and less showy, and his treatment of biblical themes, sensational in his youth, becomes solemnly religious. The crest of his success came just before the hanging of the Banning Cocq regents’ piece. After that there were fewer commissions. Comments by his contemporaries show that his attitude toward his patrons in his halcyon years was often haughty, and possibly some discontent in the members of the civic guard became a focus for a public already annoyed with him. Then, too, his artistic integrity made him difficult to deal with: he took his own good time in executing commissions, and he would accept no suggestions.

很可能,萨斯基亚的早逝使伦勃朗变得内向。此后他的肖像作品更为深沉而少了浮华,而他对圣经主题的处理,以他年轻时的感觉,变成了宗教的庄严。他成功的顶峰就出现在悬挂《班宁·科克上尉的连队》作品之前。从那以后,委托绘画所得的佣金更少了。他同时代的评论显示,在他平静的那些年里,他对赞助人的态度通常是傲慢的,而且可能还有公民卫队中成员的某些不满,迁怒于他,成为了公众焦点。此外,还有他的艺术完整性让他难以处理:他在完成委托任务时自得其乐,而且他不愿接受任何建议。

Possibly, too, Rembrandt’s reputation suffered because he was not a member of the powerful “Muiden Circle,” a group of Dutch intellectuals—poets, historians, and painters—who met at Muiden Castle near Amsterdam and were solidly accepted as the cultural arbiters of the Dutch Republic. Joost van den Vondel, one of the group and the leading poet of Holland, referred to Rembrandt without enthusiasm, if not slightingly, in one of his epigrams. Also, the Muiden writers were unsparing in their praise of Joachim van Sandrart, a German painter now almost forgotten, and of Govaert Flinck, who had been one of Rembrandt’s apprentices. We can assume that Rembrandt was a devoted teacher, but not a tyrannical one—freedom to EXPRESS the inner intent and to work out problems without outside interference was his watchword.

也有可能,伦勃朗的声誉遭受损害是因为他不是强大的“默伊登圈”的成员,那是一群荷兰的知识分子---诗人、历史学家和画家---他们在阿姆斯特丹附近的默伊登堡会面,被一致认为是荷兰共和国文化的仲裁者。约斯特·范·德·冯德尔,该团体的成员之一,而且是荷兰主要的诗人,在他的一首短诗中提及伦勃朗时即使不是轻视,也没什么热情。此外,默伊登圈的作家们对一位现在几乎被遗忘的德国画家,约阿希姆·范·桑德拉特的赞扬却慷慨大方,还有霍法尔特·弗林克,他曾是伦勃朗的学徒之一。我们可以设想,伦勃朗是一位有献身精神的老师,而不是一位专横的人---不受外界的干扰,自由地表达内心的意图和解决问题才是他的口号。

Rembrandt’s loyalty is another quality that the sparse record authenticates. He loved only two women, Saskia and Hendrickje. He refrained from marrying Hendrickje only because such a marriage would have taken from him the control of the remainder of Saskia’s fortune. His devotion to his son Titus is obvious from his many portraits of the boy through childhood, youth, and early manhood. His friendship with Dr. Tulp and with members of the Six family, his faithful patrons, lasted until his death.

伦勃朗的忠诚是另一个由稀少的记录证明的品质。他只爱过两个女人,萨斯基亚和亨德里克耶。他没有同亨德里克耶结婚,只是因为这样的婚姻会使他无法掌控萨斯基亚留下的财富。他对儿子提图斯的爱,可以从他对孩子的童年、青年和早期男子气概的许多肖像中明显看到。他与蒂尔普医生和六个家庭的成员,他忠实地赞助人的友谊一直持续到他去世。

The most striking conjecture supported by the works is the ironic fact that Rembrandt, in the days of his glory, painted with great technical skill but with less spiritual and psychological insight, whereas later, in his comparative poverty and loneliness, his work not only grew more profound, more rich in implication, more spiritual, and more incalculably great, but also outdid his earlier masterpieces in sheer technical genius.

由作品支持的最惊人的推测是伦勃朗具有讽刺意味的事实,在他辉煌的日子里,绘画极富技巧,但缺乏精神和心理的洞察力,而后来,在他相当穷困和孤独时,他的作品不仅变得更深刻,含义更丰富,更精神化并且更加不可多得,而且在纯技巧的天赋方面超越了他早期的杰作。

Rembrandt’s ill fortune in worldly matters, though one or two scholars have sought to deny it, is self-evident. His house, his art collection, his personal possessions were sold in bankruptcy. He moved his household to poorer quarters. His death did not call forth the commemoration ode so common in his day, and there was no sign of public mourning. His funeral was not IMPRESSIVE. In his final months, according to the report of an old servant, he had been using some of the small legacy that Hendrickje left to Cornelia. Many critics and biographers have seen in his life an example of corruption through success and regeneration through failure. When he died, some of his greatest works stood finished but unnoticed in his humble studio. That some change of heart, some turning away from negation, may have taken place between 1661, when he painted the barbaric Julius Civilis, and 1662, when he painted the warm and gracious Syndics of the Cloth Hall, is another conjecture based on the psychological implications of his canvases.

伦勃朗陷入了世俗事务的不幸,虽然一两个学者试图否认这点。他的房屋,他的艺术收藏品,他的个人财产都在破产时变卖了。他将家搬到贫困的地方。他去世时并没有引起他全盛时期常见的纪念活动,也没有公众悼念的迹象。他的葬礼悄无声息。据一位老仆人的记述,在他最后的几个月里,他一直靠着亨德里克耶留给科妮莉亚的一小份遗产生活。许多评论家和传记作家在他的生活中看到了从成功到腐败以及从失败而重生的例证。当他去世时,他的一些最伟大的作品已经完成,但在他简陋的工作室中却被人忽视。某些内心的改变,某些对否定的转变,可能都发生在1661年间,当时他画出了粗野的《尤利乌斯·西菲利斯》,而在1662年,当他绘制了温暖而亲切的《布料工会的理事》时,是基于他画作心理暗示的另一种推测。

Works. Rembrandt was a remarkably prolific and versatile painter and etcher. No certain count is possible, since many paintings by his apprentices have been ascribed to him, but about 700 oil paintings are extant. No fewer than 500 etchings came from the press that he maintained and often operated.

作品 伦勃朗是一位引人注目的多产和多才多艺的画家和蚀刻家。确切的数量无法统计,因为他学徒的许多绘画都被认为是他画的,不过,现存的绘画有700多幅。来自他维持和经常运作的报刊的蚀刻画不少于500幅。

Paintings. Although every one of Rembrandt’s canvases bears the immutable stamp of his genius and personality, his techniques were varied. Sometimes he worked in large, slashing lines and intense contrast in color and texture, and sometimes he finished his surfaces as though he were making a miniature. He sued every method of laying on his paint, from the most delicate washes that permit the canvas to show through to the heaviest impasto (paint laid on in depth and molded with brush, finger, brush handle, or palette knife).

绘画 尽管伦勃朗每幅画作都具有他天赋与个性不变的印记,但他的技巧是多种多样的。有时,他大规模地削减线条,在色彩与纹理中形成强烈的对比,而有时,他完成画面仿佛在做一幅微型图。在其绘画中,他尝试过各种着色的方法,从使画布展现出最精致的波纹到使用最重的厚涂颜料绘画法(用画笔,手指,画笔把,或调色刀重彩和造型)。

To the time of his death Rembrandt used himself as a subject, not out of vanity—the portraits are pitiless and record every wrinkle, broken tooth, and patch of graving hair—but because he was a model always available and possibly because, in studying his own person, he could study the tragic history of every man. His family was another unfailing source of subject matter: mother, sister, father, wife, mistress, son, and brother are painted repeatedly. The splendid self-portrait in the Frick Collection, New York City (1658), is one of a series of 62, all of which are prized possessions of museums throughout the world. Touching picture of his father is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. His mother’s aged and intricately wrinkled face shows itself bent over the Bible in his painting of an Old Woman Reading (1631; Rijksmuseum), and he painted his sister so often that it is difficult to know when she ceased to be his favorite young woman model and yielded her place to Saskia, since some of the portraits seem to resemble them both. The Metropolitan Museum in New York City owns a moving likeness of the aging Hendirickje (1660) and a beautiful canvas of the boy Titus (1655). THREE portraits of Rembrandt’s brother Adriaen make it hard to believe that the celebrated Man with the Golden Helmet (about 1651; Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin) is anyone but him.

一直到去世前,伦勃朗将自己作为了绘画的主题,不是出于虚荣心---这些肖像都是无情感的,记录了每条皱纹,每颗断牙和每一绺头发---而是因为他是个随时可用的模特,而且很可能是因为,在研究自身中,他可以研究每个人的悲剧历史。他的家庭是另一个经久不衰的主题来源:母亲、姐妹、父亲、妻子、情妇、儿子以及兄弟都被反复地入画。那幅在纽约市,弗里克收藏中(1658年)杰出的自画像是62系列之一,所有作品都是世界各地博物馆珍贵的财产。他父亲那动人的画像现存于波士顿美术博物馆。在他的绘画《阅读的老妇人》(1631年;国家博物馆)中,其母亲年迈而复杂皱纹的面容呈现出俯身阅读《圣经》的状态,而他经常画他的妹妹,以至于很难知道是什么时候她不再是他最爱的模特,而让萨斯基亚来替代,因为一些肖像看起来似乎既像妹妹又像萨斯基亚。纽约市大都会博物馆拥有一幅年迈的亨德里克耶动人的画像(1660年)和一幅男孩提图斯(1655年)漂亮的绘画。伦勃朗弟弟阿德里安的三幅肖像让人很难相信那幅著名的《戴金色头盔的男子》(大约1651年;柏林,凯撒·弗里德里希博物馆)不是别人,就是他。

A large part of Rembrandt’s income, like that of any contemporary Dutch artist, came from portrait commissions. In these he was sometimes merely a virtuoso, concerned as much with lace and pearls as with the vapid faces he had to paint. In others, like the profound Man with a Magnifying Glass (about 1651; Metropolitan Museum), his psychological and spiritual intent throws the marvels of his technique into the shade. He often painted friend, servants, faces seen in the city. Still oftener, because his house was in the Jewish section, he painted the haunting, wise, suffering faces of Jew driven from Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Poland to find refuge in charitable and open-minded Amsterdam.

像同时代其他的荷兰艺术家一样,伦勃朗收入的一大部分都来自肖像画的佣金。在这些肖像中,有时他仅仅是一位大师,既关注饰带和珍珠,也关注那些他不得不画的无趣的面孔。在其它作品中,像深奥的《手拿放大镜的男子》(大约1651年;大都会博物馆),他的心理和精神的意图使他的技巧成就黯然失色。他常画朋友、仆人、城市中的面孔。更有甚者,由于他的房屋在犹太人居住区,他还画出了从西班牙,葡萄牙,德国和波兰为寻找仁慈和开放的阿姆斯特丹庇护的那些给人强烈感受,机智,痛苦的面孔。

Rembrandt’s landscapes are few, but they are rich in suggestion of the majesty and mystery of uninhabited space. Such subjects as he chose from legend or history, very popular sources in his day, are even fewer. His Aristotle contemplating the Bust of Homer (1653; Metropolitan Museum) is, with Danae (1636; Hermitage, Leningrad), the best in this category.

伦勃朗的风景画很少,但它们丰富地暗示了杳无人迹空间的威严与神秘。他从他那个时代很常见的传说或历史资源中选择的这类主题甚至更少。他的《亚里士多德凝视着荷马的半身像》(1653年:大都会博物馆)与《达娜厄》(1636年;列宁格勒,埃尔米塔日博物馆)是这一类中最好的作品。

Biblical subjects. It is noteworthy that Rembrandt painted about 150 biblical subjects. In an austerely Protestant country, the only market was the relatively rare private buyer. Cardinals, bishops, and archbishops eagerly bought the works of his contemporary Rubents at good prices. But the Protestant churches of the Dutch Republic were severely whitewashed, and it was assumed that pictures interfered with meditation, so that it may be inferred that Rembrandt’s reason for painting Old and New Testament scenes was a deep personal affinity with the Bible. Though he belonged to no congregation, he had close friendships with pastors of the Mennonite sect, which adhered to the tenets of the primitive Christian community. He was also closely attached to members of the Jewish community, and his Old Testament paintings show a more than superficial knowledge of Jewish lore. Samson and Tobit (Tobias) attracted him in his youth. Bathsheba, Susanna, Esther, Joseph, and Jacob held him in his later years. The Good Samaritan, Christ at Emmaus, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection and the Healing of the Sick were recurring themes. In 1660 he was working on St. Peter Denying Christ (Rijksmuseum), and Simeon Receiving the Christ Child (National Museum, Stockholm) was probably his last work, barely begun before his death. From 1640, most of the models for his biblical work were Jews, an innovation in his time, when the influence of the Italian School gave a Mediterranean beauty to the humble folk among whom Christ lived and when Rubens was painting the Magdalen as an opulent beauty of the salons.

依据《圣经》的主题 值得注意的是,伦勃朗画了大约150幅有关圣经题材的主题。在一个严格的新教徒国家,唯一的市场是相对罕见的私人买家。红衣主教,主教和大主教都渴望用高价购买他同时代鲁本斯的那些作品。但荷兰共和国的新教教堂都被完全刷成了白色,人们认为画会干扰冥想,因此就可以推测出伦勃朗画《旧约》和《新约》场景的理由是与《圣经》有着很深的个人关系。虽然他不属于任何教会,但他与门诺教派的牧师有着亲密的友谊,这个教派与原始基督教团体的教义相一致。他还同犹太社区的成员关系密切,而他的《旧约》绘画比对肤浅的犹太传说的知识展现的更多。参孙与托比特在他年青时曾吸引过他。在他的晚年,芭丝谢巴,苏珊娜,以斯贴,约瑟夫和雅各布支撑着他。乐善好施者,埃莫斯的基督,耶稣受难与复活,以及对病态世界的治疗都是反复出现的主题。1660年,他绘制的《圣彼得的拒认》(国家博物馆)和《西缅接受耶稣的孩子》(斯德哥尔摩国家博物馆)很可能是他去世前刚刚开始的最后作品。从1640年开始,他圣经作品的大多数模特是犹太人,一种他那个时代的创新,当时意大利学派的影响给基督生活于其中的谦卑的人们带来了地中海之美,而同时鲁本斯正将从良的妓女描绘成沙龙中的华丽美人。

Practically every one of these biblical canvases has its own startlingly direct appeal. It is as if Rembrandt negated the centuries and made the events happen before our eyes. Among the most notable are: Jacob wrestling with the Angel (about 1660—1661; Kaiser Friedrich Museum); Abraham’s Sacrifice (1635; Hermitage); Bathsheba (1654; Louvre, Paris); The Return of the Prodigal Son (about 1668—1669; Hermitage); and the gentle portrait study of the Head of Christ (Metropolitan Museum). To these must be added the famous “Hundred Guilder Print” Christ Healing the Sick (date disputed; Metropolitan Museum), the crown of his work in etching, in which psychological and religious insight and technical mastery combine to produce a masterpiece.

事实上,这些圣经题材的每一幅油画都有自己令人吃惊的直接感染力。它就如同伦勃朗否定了几个世纪,使那些事件发生在我们眼前。其中最值得注意的是:《雅各布与天使摔跤》(大约1660年至1661年;凯撒弗里德里希博物馆);《亚伯拉罕献祭》(1635年;埃尔米塔日博物馆);《芭丝谢巴》(1654年;巴黎,卢浮宫);《浪子回头》(1668年至1669年;埃尔米塔日博物馆);以及对《耶稣头像》温和肖像的研究(大都会博物馆)。除了这些作品,还必须加上那幅著名的“一百荷兰盾的蚀刻画”《基督对病态世界的治疗》(日期有争议;大都会博物馆),在他蚀刻作品的皇冠中,心理和宗教的洞察力与技巧的把握共同创造了一部杰作。

Etchings and drawings. In Rembrandt’s own time, his reputation as an etcher was greater throughout Europe than his reputation as a painter. It was a time when every family wished to own, if not a painting, at least an etching to hang in the parlor. It was also a time when amateur collectors kept drawers filled with etchings that they could enjoy themselves, and show with pride to their guests. Rembrandt’s etchings circulated throughout Europe and were particularly valued because there were various stages or versions of the best of them. Never content with the copper plate from which he printed, he kept changing it, sometimes in detail and sometimes a broad overall fashion. Only he or the best of his apprentices made the prints. Most of them were small, and the care and skill involved in the minute detail were almost unbelievable, they are as varied in technique as the paintings. Some consist of the fewest possible number of lines, and others are minutely crosshatched in the most exquisite detail. In his day they were famous for heir “velvety blacks”—shadows deep but still transparent enough to permit a suggestion of indistinct shapes to come through. In his last years Rembrandt stopped etching altogether, possibly because his sight had begun to fail.

素描与蚀刻画 在伦勃朗自己的时代,在整个欧洲,他作为蚀刻家的名声要比他作为画家的名声大得多。当时每个家庭都希望有一幅自己的画,即使不是油画,至少要有一幅蚀刻画挂在会客室里。也是那个时代,业余收藏家的抽屉里装满了蚀刻画,这样他们就能欣赏它们,并自豪地向他们的客人展示。伦勃朗的蚀刻画在整个欧洲流传并且特别贵重,因为它们有不同的阶段或最好的版本。他从未满足印刷所用的铜版,不断地改变,有时是对细节的改变,有时是广泛的整体样式的变化。只有他或他最出色的学徒制作过这些蚀刻画。它们大都画面很小,而在微小的细节中所涉及的谨慎与技巧几乎难以置信,它们用到的技巧与绘画的技巧一样多变。有些用了尽可能少的线条,而另外一些在最精致的细节中画上精密的阴影线。在他的时代,它们因“天鹅绒般柔软的黑色” 而著名---深影效果,而依然足够透明,让朦胧的轮廓显现出来。在他最后的几年,伦勃朗完全停止了蚀刻画,很可能是因为他的视力已经开始衰退。

The number of Rembrandt’s drawings must have been prodigious. Some have been preserved, and are extraordinary for their sure and summary means of getting across the most complex ideas with the greatest simplicity. But in his time drawings were considered merely exploratory exercises done before painting or etching, so it is probable that hundreds were thrown away.

伦勃朗的素描数量一定多得让人吃惊。有些被保存了下来,而对其非凡的肯定和总结,就在于用最简单的方式传递了最为复杂的思想。但在他的时代,那些素描被认为只是绘画或蚀刻前所做的探索性练习,因此可能有几百张都被丢弃了。

Rembrandt’s Reputation. Fashions in painting and Rembrandt’s own inner concepts of his aims as a painter did not usually coincide. In his earlier years, while he was studying with Lastman and lived happily with Saskia, his obsession with splendor and dramatic emotion coincided with that of the great international baroque painters then in high fashion, and he rode the crest of the wave. The so-called Night Watch was an apotheosis of the baroque. In it he managed to satisfy the demand for action, agitated line, and rich trappings, but he also combined the fantastical baroque with his own concept of reality. To be true to nature and reality as he saw it was his abiding principle, and some change in his life after Saskia’s death made him see nature and reality as less and less splendid and more and more tragic and profound. Though he now and again returned to the Oriental magnificence, the theatrical attitudes, and the suggestion of agitated movement that had fascinated him earlier, the main trend of his work was toward the quiet, the inward, the deep. He painted the body as an envelope of the spirit, and the spirit, as he saw it in his maturity, was often burdened with sorrow and touched with the shadow of death. As he grew more involved in his search for the spirit, he grew bolder in the techniques through which he hoped to render it. Julius Civilis and several late self-portraits have a daring experimental quality that is almost contemporary.

伦勃朗的声誉 绘画的时尚与伦勃朗作为画家目标自身的内在概念通常是不一致的。在他的早期,虽然他同拉斯特曼一起学习并与萨斯基亚愉快地生活,但他对光彩与戏剧性情感的痴迷与当时高级时尚的国际重要的巴洛克画家的痴迷是一致的,而且他达到该浪潮的顶峰。所谓的《夜巡》就是巴洛克风格的典范。在画中,他不仅设法满足了动作的需要,搅动的线条以及华丽的服饰,而且也将虚构的巴洛克风格与他自己的现实概念结合在一起。真实地对待如他所见的自然和现实,是他永恒的原则,在萨斯基亚去世后,他生活所发生的一些变化使他觉察到自然和现实愈来愈缺少光彩,愈来愈不幸和深刻。尽管他现在,并再次返回到东方的辉煌,戏剧化的态度,以及早期使他着迷的搅动活动的暗示中,但他作品的主要趋势是趋向安静、内向和深刻。他将躯体描绘成一种精神的外套,而那种精神,正如他在自己的成熟中看到的那样,常常是承受着悲伤,触摸着死亡的阴影。随着他对这种精神的探索越发地深入,他在技巧上就变得越大胆。《尤利乌斯·西菲利斯的阴谋》和晚期的几幅自画像都带有一种几乎同时期大胆实验的性质。

In 1656, when Rembrandt was bankrupt and at his lowest ebb, the baroque had begun to lose its hold in Europe and a new style was in fashion in Amsterdam---the smooth, silky, flattering style evolved by Anthony van Dyck at the court of Charles I of England, a style that was later to yield such masterpieces as those of Jan Vermeer of Delft. But the new influence was uncongenial to Rembrandt. How could he have painted a silky surface when all his life he had laid on paint as he wished? How could he, who had spent his life in gigantic labors and violent struggles, have confined his vision of the world to little, smooth pictures of some serene domestic scene? While the new style developed, he went on evolving his own style, which only a few people, like Dr. Tulp and the Six family, followed with enthusiasm. Yet now, an examination of those late paintings of his---The Jewish Bride (about 1665; Rijksmuseum), the Family Portrait (about 1667—1669; Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick, West Germany), The Prodigal Son, and the final self-portraits---shows that it was in his last years, in sickness, poverty, loss, and loneliness, that his greatest work was done. The technique is daring, the strokes are the almost careless strokes of the self-confident master, the knowledge of man and his doings seems to pass beyond the confine of this earth, the figures exist against a shadowy background that suggests infinite space or the blacken of death, and yet the pictures glitter with an unworldly splendor that suggests the indestructibility of the spiritual essence. Their closest affinity is with the later works of Ludwig van Beethoven, in which life and death, exaltation and sorrow, resignation and chastened delight, all merge in a final affirmation.

1656年,当伦勃朗破产并处于最低谷时,巴洛克风格已开始失去它欧洲的地位,而一种新的风格在阿姆特特丹流行---由安东尼·范·戴克在英格兰查理一世的宫廷中形成的光滑的,丝绸般的,讨人喜欢的风格,后来的一种风格产生出像代尔夫特的扬·维梅尔那样的杰作。但这种新的影响对伦勃朗来说是不相宜的。当他一辈子都在按自己的愿望作画时,他又怎么能画出一种丝绸般光滑的表面呢?在大量的劳作和激烈的斗争中度过他的一生,他如何能将他对世界的视野局限在某些平静的家庭场景那小小的,光滑的画面上?在发展新风格的同时,他继续发展着他自己的风格,只有少数人,像蒂尔普医生和六个家庭带着热情追随着他。而现在,我们来看看他的晚期绘画---《犹太人的新娘》(大约1665年;国家博物馆),《家庭群像》(大约1667年至1669年;西德,布伦瑞克,赫尔左格·安东·乌尔里奇博物馆),《浪子回头》以及最后的自画像---表明那是在他最后的几年,在疾病、贫困、失落和孤独中完成的最好的作品。手法大胆,笔触几乎是自信大师不经意的笔触,对人和其行为的了解似乎超出了这个星球的限制,人物生存在一种阴影的背景中,暗示着无限的空间或死亡的黑暗,然而,画面闪耀着一种脱俗的光彩,暗示着精神本质的不可摧毁性。它们与路德维希·范·贝多芬的后期作品有着最为密切的关系,其中生命与死亡,喜悦与悲伤,顺从与磨练后的高兴,都汇合成了最后的主张。

Rembrandt’s reputation, which was in decline when he died, began to emerge strongly again in the middle of the 18th century. Since then it has moved only upward. He speaks to all men—to contemporary artist through his inimitable technique, to the unlettered through his warmth and immediacy, to the philosopher through his deep revelation of the human spirit. Today he is everyman’s painter, and it is hard to imagine a day when his canvases, with their mastery, their splendor, and their profundity, will cease to draw and stir the minds of men.

伦勃朗的声誉,在他去世时是在下降,而在十八世纪中叶又开始强烈的崛起。从那时起,它一直在上升。他告诉所有的人们---通过他独特的技巧告诉当代的艺术家,通过他的温暖而直接告诉未受过教育的人们,通过他对人类精神的深刻启示告诉哲学家。今天,他是普通人的画家,很难想象有一天当他的绘画带着它们的优势,它们的光辉和它们的深刻,会停止吸引和激发人类的思想。

GLADYS SCHMITT

Author of “Rembrandt”

格拉迪斯·施米特

“伦勃朗”的作者

2021年4月11日

(译者注:该词条位列《大美百科全书》1985年版,第23卷,第372页至376页。

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