Pictures Every Child Should Know: A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young PeopleBacon, Mary Schell Hoke
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Pictures Every Child Should Know: A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young People
Bacon, Mary Schell Hoke
Art -- Juvenile literature; Painters -- Juvenile literature; Painting -- Juvenile literature
He painted her sitting upon his knee, and used her as model in many
pictures. First, last, and always he loved her tenderly.
In one portrait she is dressed in "red and gold-embroidered velvets";
the mantle she wore he had brought from Leyden. In another picture she
is at her toilet, having her hair arranged; again she is painted in a
great red velvet hat, and then as a Jewish bride, wearing pearls, and
holding a shepherd's staff in her hand. Again, Rembrandt painted
himself as a giant at the feet of a dainty woman, and in every way his
work showed his love for her. After he married her, in June 1634, he
painted the picture, "Samson's Wedding," "Saskia, dainty and serene,
sitting like a princess in a circle of her relatives, he himself
appearing as a crude plebeian, whose strange jokes frighten more than
they amuse the distinguished company. ... The early years of his
marriage were spent in joy and revelry. Surrounded by calculating
business men who kept a tight grasp on their money bags, he assumed
the rôle of an artist scattering money with a free hand; surrounded by
small townsmen most proper in demeanour, he revealed himself as the
bold lasquenet, frightening them by his cavalier manners. He brought
together all manner of Oriental arms, ancient fabrics, and gleaming
jewellery; and his house became one of the sights of Amsterdam." His
existence reads like a fairy tale.
It is said that Saskia strutted about decked in gold and diamonds,
till her relatives "shook their heads" in alarm and amazement at such
wild goings on.
Before he married Saskia he had painted a remarkable picture, named
the "School of Anatomy." It represents a great anatomist, the friend
of Rembrandt--Nicholaus Tulp,--and a group of physicians who were
members of the Guild of Surgeons of Amsterdam. It is so wonderful a
picture that even the dead man, who is being used as a subject by the
anatomist, does not too greatly disturb us as we look upon him. The
thoughtful, interested faces of the surgeons are so strong that we
half lose ourselves in their feeling, and forget to start in repulsion
at sight of the dead body. A fine description of this painting can be
found in Sarah K. Bolton's book "Famous Artists" and it includes the
description given by another excellent authority.
The artist was twenty-six years old when he painted the "School of
Anatomy." This picture is now at The Hague and two hundred years after
it was painted the Dutch Government gave 30,000 florins for it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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