In reviews of the exhibition of Rembrandt's self portraits at the National Gallery, various explanations were offered as to why Rembrandt used himself as a model. These included the suggestions that he was cheap and that he was advertising his skills to clients. He is accused of "conceit," "self-aggrandisement" and "pomposity."
This may be true but in the seven articles I read, nobody mentioned that, as a painter, he was obsessed by the way light reveals objects in space. Could it not be that the various costumes he wore gave him opportunities to explore the way light affects different fabrics?
The exhibition itself was accompanied by wall cards, a CD commentary and a catalogue. Even here there was scant reference to the pictorial language used by Rembrandt. In the first room of the exhibition there hangs a jewel, The Painter in his Studio. The CD helpfully informs us that "in one hand he holds a brush." Why is there no mention of the geometry of this picture? Is it a coincidence that the edge of the doorway comes on the square of the height of the picture? Might it not increase our enjoyment of the painting to have some insight into how its drama is constructed? Later, the CD tells us that one of Rembrandt's "great triumphs... had been to paint skin in such a way that it suggested living flesh." Why are we not told how he achieved this?
There has also been much speculation about the kinds of hats Rembrandt chose to wear. Could it not be that the elliptical shape of a hat provided a useful device for creating the illusion of volume and space on a flat surface? The CD tells us that he is able to "capture a likeness." A likeness is not "captured," it is constructed by means of observing the character of light and dark shapes. A frown, for example, or a dimple, can be seen as particular shapes.
I am a painter because I am finely tuned to sensations of light and I strive to find an order for these sensations. Whether a tree, an apple or a face, I see them in terms of a pattern of shapes and colour values. Light and dark reveal each other. As Matisse said: "I don't paint things. I paint only the relation between things."
From a painter's perspective, each Rembrandt painting, regardless of subject, demonstrates his pleasure in responding to light on form. Using a pictorial language, he creates an exquisite illusion of light and space on a flat surface-the three-dimensional world is transposed into two dimensions by means of this language. The artist makes an equivalent of a nose or a mouth by a logical system of looking. Rembrandt constructs the journey from the tip of the nose back to the ear by means of a sequence of shapes of colour which vary in tone, temperature and saturation. If the colour value and shape have the right relationship, the illusion of light and space will appear, and likeness and expression will emerge. Monet said: "Forget what object you have before you, a tree, a house... Just think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you...."
This visual language has a grammar. As with other languages, mastering it demands rigorous study. As a student in the life rooms at the Slade in the early 1980s, I spent a whole term working on one painting; an entire day could be spent analysing the changing planes which made up the model's knee and mixing their equivalent in paint. We learnt the logic of the colour wheel; how Rembrandt makes a journey from a red lip to its opposite green in the shadows; where the lightest light in a picture exists and where the darkest dark. We learnt to see how the tone of a shadow on a cheek might be the same as the tone of the hair, or how the light on a shoulder only exists because of the relative dark behind it.
Pictures can be looked at as pieces of paint woven together, just as music is a sequence of notes which combine to make a melody. People with no education in the language of painting are excluded from the painter's perspective. Even in my year at the Slade there were only 20 of us learning the language, out of 200. Is it too late to save it?
Rembrandt: self-portraits
National Gallery
9th June-5th September
