Part of the pleasure of posting here is seeing what readers have to say. And a commenter, @linnesby, has picked up on a telling detail that I misconstrued. What I took to be a mirror on the wall is in fact a clean palette. This suggests that the canvas is still blank, and Rembrandt is contemplating the scale of the painting, deciding where to place the first brushstroke. He could, of course, be assessing a work in progress, as artists do all the time. I can still see my father, an artist, eying his unfinished painting from across the room. But if the painting is already taking shape, how to explain the clean palette? Maybe there's another somewhere? I prefer the simpler narrative: one palette, one painting waiting to be born, calling "Make me."
I keep going back and forth — maybe he has just cleaned the palette (is that a cloth in his left hand?) thinking that he was done, and is now reconsidering. Or maybe the point is all in the fact of a painter standing there with his brush in his hand, but no palette prepared to paint with? I think that your original core reading — that it's ambiguous and could be at any point in the process — is powerful, and it's the one I'll stick with. I never noticed the painting before, and now it has suddenly become a meaningful one for me too — thank you.
I just read that he was 22 when he made that painting! I, too, like the ambiguity of this one--though I'm dying to step into the frame and turn that canvas around! In a video i just now watched, it was pointed out that painters at that time were considered craftsmen, and so Rembrandt shows in this painting the thinking involved. It's not just a craft but an intellectual process. In this way, he is saying that an artist is above simple craftsmanship. Rona, thank you so much for introducing me to this painting. It's now among my favorites.
Mary, I see you are all in with this painting. Wonderful. I’m glad to have made the introduction and hope you get to see it for rel someday. It’s not currently on display in Boston but don’t let that stop you from exploring my beloved MFA, one of the great American museums.
Oh! That makes so much sense! The clean palette signifies that he's painting even when there's no paint in sight. Love that. And it restores the original ambiguity about the point in the creative process that the essay first raised: it could be the beginning, middle or end. Marvelous.
Much began with your observation about the palette. And of course, an artist is always mentally engaged in art-making. Musing and wondering are part of writing.
I’m trained in close reading of text, not images 😊, so was following your sentence, looking for all of the elements you raised, when my eye kept stopping on that unused palette.
Did you say above that there is another in his left land? I thought I saw a fistful of brushes, and what might be a cleaning cloth (for wiping brushes?), but couldn’t tell. Thanks for writing this great piece.
Every time I look at this painting, I see something different, thanks to this discussion. It now seems he may be holding a palette in his left hand, which supports the theory that the painting is underway. He's also holding something else I can't identify. And I'm not sure why an artist would be holding a staff--unless he's painting himself and it's a prop. He used quite a few of those.
Rona, we talk about something as being 'well written' but this disguises two completely separate ideas: that the words flow in a mellifluous, pleasing fashion (an art in itself, as we all know) and that the ideas hit home. You have done both. I am in awe.
A wise distinction. It's easy to come across all kinds of writers getting caught up in their 'word-smithing' - (clearly, they snoozed through the 'kill your darlings' symposium) - but then when you try to figure out their point…….? What's that current 'in' saying? - crickets.
Actually, I am also a big fan of Rembrandt paintings and his many self-portraits. But oddly enough, the one which has been on the bulletin board above my desk for forty years (replaced at one point because it had been bleached by the London sun!), is
the one showing the inspectors of clothmaking guilds (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndics_of_the_Drapers%27_Guild) because you, the viewer, feel so judged by these guys. I told my husband I put it above my desk to remind myself I was always being judged. I just took it down to see the title and the thumbtack fell apart in my hands like dust. Perhaps I should write about it.
Thanks for this post. So well wrought. The perspective makes the easel twice the height of the artist. It is reassuring to know every artist struggles with something far larger than themselves.
"I didn’t dare call myself an honest minor writer. A real writer would have a market-worthy book underway, not false starts on a hard drive."
It pains me that we do this to ourselves, and I've been in and out of this mindset many times. If I focus on that word "real" I'm reminded of The Velveteen Rabbit and how the toy became real simply because it was loved. As others have remarked, I think it's also important to acknowledge that the creative life is about both inspiration and execution, that it is a discipline as much as a meditation practice or the work of an athlete. That Rembrandt died a pauper to me is a reminder that creativity alone may not be sufficient for the kind of success we artists dream of having.
Ah, yes, the Velveteen Rabbit. The artist is real if the art resonates for someone. In the beginning we dream of hundreds of thousands of “someones.” Few are so lucky. It’s tough to let go of these taunting fantasies. I’m not there yet.
Yes. It helps to give yourself credit for growing as an artist, for achieving an effect today that you could not have pulled off five years ago. Other people are not going to notice unless they follow your work more closely than pretty well anyone does.
"Something that doesn’t yet exist calls your name—a novel, a song, a play." What a fabulous opening sentence! Loved this piece, Rona. As I studied the painting, I realized that what I saw was a painter stepping back to see what he'd put on the canvas. I don't see a blank canvas. I see a work in progress and that moment when you realize your beautiful idea cannot ever be fully realized. And yet--see the bright edge of the canvas in the sunlight? There is something there--he is pondering it. I love how he is small and the canvas is so much larger--the things we create are so much larger than we our ourselves. We don't even know what we have created until we stand back and look! That expression on his face! He's not sure what he has, but he stands, brush ready, to paint more. and more. Thank you for this Sunday morning thought exercise, Rona. Those self-portraits are fascinating. I wonder if he ever painted himself from the other side--so that we see the left side of his face? Or did he forever keep that side hidden?
Mary, I wondered myself if he painted the other side of his face. Yes, but rarely, as you can see from the virtual gallery of all his self-portraits (link below). Artists do stand back all the time to watch their own work take shape, so he could well be assessing a work in progress. My father was an artist, and in my mind he's looking at his painting from afar. In this case, I think it's more likely that he hasn't yet started. I will explain in a comment to the group. https://www.wga.hu/html_m/r/rembrand/27self/index.html
Because if you can write one, you can write another. And another after that. One true sentence is where it all begins, and why I can’t let an ugly or imprecise sentence stand.
It’s the word true that stands out for me. There is such elation when you finally have a sublimely perfect true sentence. Hemingway had many. And they were often sparse. Gave me shivers. So your reminder of that quote always sends me down a rabbit hole! Happy Sunday.
This is a gorgeous essay, Rona. I've seen a few self-portraits by Rembrandt in museums but not this one. I love its forlorn bareness, which you so well draw our attention to.
Two impressions:
1) The artist almost seems to be challenging me, the viewer, in some way. It's a little unnerving.
2) This is a great image about how we, the reader/viewer, bring so much to the book or canvas. Without us, this work seems to suggest, the painting on the canvas doesn't exist. We bring it to life and fill it with meaning.
Thank you for giving us the chance to reflect on this painting and its interpretation.
Yes to “challenging.” It’s the signature of his self-portraits. Even at his most care-worn and battered, he projects supreme confidence in his powers. He seems well aware that the rest of us, by and large, don’t have this gift. He was never a handsome man, and knew it, but what liveliness and nobility he had.
We were fortunate to visit Rembrandt's home many years ago. Though then in my 40s, I was still too young to appreciate all that I was seeing - (boy, for some of us, it sure takes a long time to grow up, grow into the world). But I loved reading this piece with your considered, informed take not just on Mr. R, but how a single painting could help you evaluate your own life and creative development. (I really appreciated your line about the easel leg….that is a good eye.)
Wish I had taken the opportunity to see his house. When we were last in Amsterdam, I hadn’t yet been smitten by this painting and by Rembrandt’s story.
And he was right. I used to ask myself, while editing the work of others, where the piece itself was trying to tell me about where it should go. A good creative idea has a native intelligence.
All (no, much) writing flexes the mind of the writer. I'm not sure art does it more than anything else, but I would be very happy to hear an argument to the contrary. I did write a post about Annuciation paintings, which I have loved for years: https://arichardson.substack.com/p/annunciations
Part of the pleasure of posting here is seeing what readers have to say. And a commenter, @linnesby, has picked up on a telling detail that I misconstrued. What I took to be a mirror on the wall is in fact a clean palette. This suggests that the canvas is still blank, and Rembrandt is contemplating the scale of the painting, deciding where to place the first brushstroke. He could, of course, be assessing a work in progress, as artists do all the time. I can still see my father, an artist, eying his unfinished painting from across the room. But if the painting is already taking shape, how to explain the clean palette? Maybe there's another somewhere? I prefer the simpler narrative: one palette, one painting waiting to be born, calling "Make me."
I keep going back and forth — maybe he has just cleaned the palette (is that a cloth in his left hand?) thinking that he was done, and is now reconsidering. Or maybe the point is all in the fact of a painter standing there with his brush in his hand, but no palette prepared to paint with? I think that your original core reading — that it's ambiguous and could be at any point in the process — is powerful, and it's the one I'll stick with. I never noticed the painting before, and now it has suddenly become a meaningful one for me too — thank you.
I just read that he was 22 when he made that painting! I, too, like the ambiguity of this one--though I'm dying to step into the frame and turn that canvas around! In a video i just now watched, it was pointed out that painters at that time were considered craftsmen, and so Rembrandt shows in this painting the thinking involved. It's not just a craft but an intellectual process. In this way, he is saying that an artist is above simple craftsmanship. Rona, thank you so much for introducing me to this painting. It's now among my favorites.
Mary, I see you are all in with this painting. Wonderful. I’m glad to have made the introduction and hope you get to see it for rel someday. It’s not currently on display in Boston but don’t let that stop you from exploring my beloved MFA, one of the great American museums.
Oh! That makes so much sense! The clean palette signifies that he's painting even when there's no paint in sight. Love that. And it restores the original ambiguity about the point in the creative process that the essay first raised: it could be the beginning, middle or end. Marvelous.
Much began with your observation about the palette. And of course, an artist is always mentally engaged in art-making. Musing and wondering are part of writing.
I’m trained in close reading of text, not images 😊, so was following your sentence, looking for all of the elements you raised, when my eye kept stopping on that unused palette.
Did you say above that there is another in his left land? I thought I saw a fistful of brushes, and what might be a cleaning cloth (for wiping brushes?), but couldn’t tell. Thanks for writing this great piece.
I think it’s a palette. Looks rather stiff to be a cloth.
Every time I look at this painting, I see something different, thanks to this discussion. It now seems he may be holding a palette in his left hand, which supports the theory that the painting is underway. He's also holding something else I can't identify. And I'm not sure why an artist would be holding a staff--unless he's painting himself and it's a prop. He used quite a few of those.
Rona, we talk about something as being 'well written' but this disguises two completely separate ideas: that the words flow in a mellifluous, pleasing fashion (an art in itself, as we all know) and that the ideas hit home. You have done both. I am in awe.
A wise distinction. It's easy to come across all kinds of writers getting caught up in their 'word-smithing' - (clearly, they snoozed through the 'kill your darlings' symposium) - but then when you try to figure out their point…….? What's that current 'in' saying? - crickets.
Ann, what heartening words from one of my first readers here.
Actually, I am also a big fan of Rembrandt paintings and his many self-portraits. But oddly enough, the one which has been on the bulletin board above my desk for forty years (replaced at one point because it had been bleached by the London sun!), is
the one showing the inspectors of clothmaking guilds (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndics_of_the_Drapers%27_Guild) because you, the viewer, feel so judged by these guys. I told my husband I put it above my desk to remind myself I was always being judged. I just took it down to see the title and the thumbtack fell apart in my hands like dust. Perhaps I should write about it.
Give it a go. Writing about art flexes the mind of the writer.
Rona,
Thanks for this post. So well wrought. The perspective makes the easel twice the height of the artist. It is reassuring to know every artist struggles with something far larger than themselves.
Thanks, David. The easel is the key to this painting.
"I didn’t dare call myself an honest minor writer. A real writer would have a market-worthy book underway, not false starts on a hard drive."
It pains me that we do this to ourselves, and I've been in and out of this mindset many times. If I focus on that word "real" I'm reminded of The Velveteen Rabbit and how the toy became real simply because it was loved. As others have remarked, I think it's also important to acknowledge that the creative life is about both inspiration and execution, that it is a discipline as much as a meditation practice or the work of an athlete. That Rembrandt died a pauper to me is a reminder that creativity alone may not be sufficient for the kind of success we artists dream of having.
Ah, yes, the Velveteen Rabbit. The artist is real if the art resonates for someone. In the beginning we dream of hundreds of thousands of “someones.” Few are so lucky. It’s tough to let go of these taunting fantasies. I’m not there yet.
And sometimes, that "someone" can be us, right? I'm not there yet either, but I'm learning to quiet the committee of a$$holes in my head. ;)
Yes. It helps to give yourself credit for growing as an artist, for achieving an effect today that you could not have pulled off five years ago. Other people are not going to notice unless they follow your work more closely than pretty well anyone does.
Meant to include this:
'The Guest House' by Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Haven’t seen this before. Thank you. Great metaphor.
"Something that doesn’t yet exist calls your name—a novel, a song, a play." What a fabulous opening sentence! Loved this piece, Rona. As I studied the painting, I realized that what I saw was a painter stepping back to see what he'd put on the canvas. I don't see a blank canvas. I see a work in progress and that moment when you realize your beautiful idea cannot ever be fully realized. And yet--see the bright edge of the canvas in the sunlight? There is something there--he is pondering it. I love how he is small and the canvas is so much larger--the things we create are so much larger than we our ourselves. We don't even know what we have created until we stand back and look! That expression on his face! He's not sure what he has, but he stands, brush ready, to paint more. and more. Thank you for this Sunday morning thought exercise, Rona. Those self-portraits are fascinating. I wonder if he ever painted himself from the other side--so that we see the left side of his face? Or did he forever keep that side hidden?
Mary, I wondered myself if he painted the other side of his face. Yes, but rarely, as you can see from the virtual gallery of all his self-portraits (link below). Artists do stand back all the time to watch their own work take shape, so he could well be assessing a work in progress. My father was an artist, and in my mind he's looking at his painting from afar. In this case, I think it's more likely that he hasn't yet started. I will explain in a comment to the group. https://www.wga.hu/html_m/r/rembrand/27self/index.html
Oh, thank you for the link.
This is lovely, but more importantly— to me at least— really well written.
Thanks so much. I’m not capable of tossing off a piece.
This sort of writing tells a story— and the story is, this writer spends a lot of time wearing the editing hat.
Ha! In my former life as a magazine editor, I was a real hardass for economy and precision.
I’m glad you’re editing you and not editing me— my prose wouldn’t know where to hide.
Hear, hear!
I have always loved this from Hemingway: All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
Because if you can write one, you can write another. And another after that. One true sentence is where it all begins, and why I can’t let an ugly or imprecise sentence stand.
It’s the word true that stands out for me. There is such elation when you finally have a sublimely perfect true sentence. Hemingway had many. And they were often sparse. Gave me shivers. So your reminder of that quote always sends me down a rabbit hole! Happy Sunday.
And to you, Alice.
“Stay the course…”
Yes. This post lifted me up!
Thank you for sharing this! The reminder that the “peril” and bewilderment in creating happens to everyone is so comforting 💗
Oh, yes. Glad to offer encouragement.
This is a gorgeous essay, Rona. I've seen a few self-portraits by Rembrandt in museums but not this one. I love its forlorn bareness, which you so well draw our attention to.
Two impressions:
1) The artist almost seems to be challenging me, the viewer, in some way. It's a little unnerving.
2) This is a great image about how we, the reader/viewer, bring so much to the book or canvas. Without us, this work seems to suggest, the painting on the canvas doesn't exist. We bring it to life and fill it with meaning.
Thank you for giving us the chance to reflect on this painting and its interpretation.
Yes to “challenging.” It’s the signature of his self-portraits. Even at his most care-worn and battered, he projects supreme confidence in his powers. He seems well aware that the rest of us, by and large, don’t have this gift. He was never a handsome man, and knew it, but what liveliness and nobility he had.
We were fortunate to visit Rembrandt's home many years ago. Though then in my 40s, I was still too young to appreciate all that I was seeing - (boy, for some of us, it sure takes a long time to grow up, grow into the world). But I loved reading this piece with your considered, informed take not just on Mr. R, but how a single painting could help you evaluate your own life and creative development. (I really appreciated your line about the easel leg….that is a good eye.)
Wish I had taken the opportunity to see his house. When we were last in Amsterdam, I hadn’t yet been smitten by this painting and by Rembrandt’s story.
I didn’t know Rembrandt painted 90 self-portraits! Saving this post to return to again.
Some are drawings and etchings. There's a link in the essay for further exploring.
This is inspirational - a buoy in the sea of creative unknown.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
"Any art worth making is bigger and wilder than the artist." D.H. Lawrence said trust the art, not the artist.
And he was right. I used to ask myself, while editing the work of others, where the piece itself was trying to tell me about where it should go. A good creative idea has a native intelligence.
All (no, much) writing flexes the mind of the writer. I'm not sure art does it more than anything else, but I would be very happy to hear an argument to the contrary. I did write a post about Annuciation paintings, which I have loved for years: https://arichardson.substack.com/p/annunciations
Art pushes you to perceive the story through your eyes, not through your intellect. It stretches the writer (this writer, anyway).