英语介绍伦勃朗的自画像

Rembrandt

Self-portrait, 1660

Oil on canvas

80.3 x 67.3 cm

Self-Portrait by Rembrandt

Rembrandt was born on July 15, 1606, and dies on October 4, 1669. He was a Dutch painter and etcher. To me, Rembrandt is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history. As we all know, his contributions to art came in a period that historians call the Dutch Golden Age.

Having achieved youthful su ccess as a portrait painter, Rembrandt’s later years were miserably marked by personal tragedy and financial hardship. “Yet his drawings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high and for twenty years he taught nearly every important Dutch painter.”1More specific, Rembrandt's greatest creative triumphs are exemplified especially in his portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible. The self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity

and with the utmost sincerity.

As James Harris says in his article in Art and Images In Psychiatry, “Early on, Rembrandt focused on the play of light and shadow in his work rather than on reproducing his accurate likeness. At times, he posed before a mirror in costume. But as he grew older, the personal resemblance increased, often capturing his fleeting moods. His many etchings catalogue the early evolution of his art, showing the wild, often bushy hair of his youth, his keen searching eyes, his thick nose, and his sensitive mouth”.

2(Harris, 2013) Rembrandt did around 23 self-portraits in his lifetime. I picked 3 famous ones. The first one is called Self-portrait in a Cap and illustrated his youthful experimentation with emotions in 1630. His second one is called Self-portrait with Tocque and Gold Chain and painted in 1633. And here comes the third one that I want to introduce the most: his final self-portrait. It details how his self-image had changed during his lifetime. This piece of work in 1660 at his 53 or 54 years of age is considered one of his best works. In this portrait, he wears a heavy, brownish coat. His hat, in a rich black, contrasts nicely with the warm green background. The shadows in his face are warm and transparent, and his cheek is glowing with a clear texture of the flesh. I believe that “even though his forehead may be wrinkled with worry, the spark remains in his eye and a sense of pride lurks in the jaunty tilt of his cap and his raised head”. 2

I like this painting so much. I like how he was painting his nose in really sharp