The Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt was a prolific printmaker throughout his career, and is universally regarded as one of the greatest creators of old master prints. Though, like other prints, his are often loosely described as "engravings", the main technique he used was etching, with some prints entirely in true engraving or in drypoint. Many prints used a mixture of techniques, as was common at the time.
In all he produced about 300 prints. He is famous for revising prints, sometimes over a period of several years, producing an unusually large number of states, which have provided specialist scholars with a good deal of work. For some of his career Rembrandt had an etching press in his house; this is now recreated in the original room in the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam.
He produced prints on a wide range of subjects: self-portraits and portraits, biblical and mythological subjects, genre scenes, landscapes, and other subjects. In particular, of the unprecedentedly high number of self-portraits by Rembrandt, 31 are etchings, ranging from very quick sketches to four highly-finished "official" self-portraits. Unlike his paintings, his prints circulated throughout Europe during his lifetime, contributing to his great reputation.
Some of his prints survive in a single impression (or copy), but these are mostly sketchy studies. Many of his most finished prints have had the plates reworked, initially by Rembrandt himself, to produce a later state, but then by others for two centuries or more after his death. Studies of the paper used, and any watermarks, help to clarify the dating of what are often several stages of creating the print, and then printing off batches of it.
Overview Trained by Joris van Schooten in Leiden and by Pieter Lastman, Rembrandt quickly incorporated chiaroscuro into his etchings. Initially, Rembrandt produced a large number of reproductive or commercial prints. He began etching around 1625, at the same time as launching his career as an independent painter. Initially very close to the style of Jan Lievens, with whom he shared his studio, Rembrandt left the sculptural effects to work more on faces and the play of light – a characteristic he would develop throughout his career.
Living in Amsterdam since 1630, Rembrandt sought to break into the art market by innovating both in subject and technique, producing compositions captured on the spot of great quality. From 1636 onwards, Rembrandt distinguished himself by his mature treatment of self-portraits, a more humanistic representation of biblical subjects, and his growing mastery of engraving techniques.
Rembrandt found his true style in the less productive 1640s, abandoning a sometimes exaggerated Baroque for a more intimate Classicism, in both religious subjects and landscapes. He also gradually changed his approach to subjects, concentrating on the moment whose dramatic tension comes from putting the action on hold. Initially meticulous in the treatment of textures, Rembrandt concentrated on the structure of objects and lighting effects, the apogee in terms of composition and technique being the Hundred Guilder Print (completed in 1649, after a decade of work). In the 1650s, Rembrandt became more productive and artistically liberated.
"But what set this artist apart was a way he invented for making engravings. This one, entirely his own, was never used by others nor seen since and consisted of strokes of points of different strengths, with irregular, isolated strokes, which created a deep chiaroscuro of great intensity. And in truth, in a certain kind of engraving, Rembrandt was much more esteemed by professionals than in painting, in which he seems to have had exceptional luck more than merit of his own."
- Philippe Baldinucci, art historian and contemporary collector of Rembrandt, 1681-1728.
“In the history of graphic art, it rarely happens that a technique can be completely identified with the genius of a single artist; however, it can be said that etching, in the seventeenth century, is Rembrandt.”
- Karel G. Boon, Director of the Prints and Drawings Department, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 1963
Rembrandt and engraving
The years 1626–1640
Training in Leiden and Amsterdam Rembrandt's teachers in Leiden were Jacob van SwanenburghKarel G. Boon describes Swanenburgh as a "fairly insignificant painter of architecture, a retarded disciple of Mannerism". While it is known that Rembrandt perfected his pen-and-ink drawing skills with him at the age of 15, "it is not known what influence Jacob Izaaksz Swanenburch had on his young pupil". (from 1621 to 1623, with whom he learned pen drawing) and Joris van Schooten.It was at Joris van Schooten's that Rembrandt is said to have met Jan Lievens, then considered “more gifted than he”.
However, his six-month stay in Amsterdam in 1624, with Pieter Lastman and Jan Pynasc, was decisive in his training: Rembrandt learned pencil drawing, the principles of composition, and working from nature. He mainly tackled the same biblical and antique themes as Lastman, treating them with the same “narrative power and remarkable realistic accents”. Lastman also passed on to him the influence of artists he had met in Rome: Adam Elsheimer and Caravaggio, while he discovered the work of Rubens in his studio. Rembrandt thus appropriated chiaroscuro as his language, “of rare poetry”. The bustle and art of Amsterdam left their mark on his early work; he became acquainted with Flemish painters, including Hercule Seghers.
Rembrandt did not go on the Grand Tour and settled in Leiden in 1625. His friend Jan Lievens, also a pupil of Lastman and van Schooten, joined his studio. By this time, their talent and style were so similar that it was difficult for art historians to distinguish between them.Even if the writer Constantin Huygens, no specialist on the subject, wrote in 1629-1631 that “Rembrandt was incomparable in the narrative life he knew how to lend to his subjects”. André-Charles Coppier speaks of a time when Rembrandt's production was limited to an overproduction of commercially-oriented prints – “sales subjects” for which he was content with a purely linear style – associated with the painters Jan Lievens, Gerrit Dou, Hendrick Cornelisz. van Vliet and Jacques des Rousseaux.
Personal style and etching debut
Rembrandt's works become more intimate and “reveal a new subtlety in the treatment of chiaroscuro” (B. 88, B. 51). He soon found a very free and personal style for self-portraits and visages.See the small studies of elderly people for whom his parents were most often the models: B. 374 and B. 366.
He seems to have started etching as early as 1625–26 – at the very beginning of his career as an independent painter – although his first engravings are dated 1628. His technique and style are very close to those of Lievens, who probably instructed him. Rembrandt, however, left sculptural effects to study light effects in particular. He perceived engraving as an experimental and foreign art form: at first, he was content to draw (B. 59, S. 398). His style evolved, as he became more airy and chose larger compositions, although he still produced small, detailed scenes (B. 48, B. 66). We know that Rembrandt owned a collection of Callot's engravings and that he was strongly inspired by the Gueux series (B. 173, B. 16). However, he followed the typical themes of his time in both painting and engraving, with biblical subjects, old men's heads, and self-portraits.
Installation in Amsterdam
Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam in 1631 and opened his studio in the home of his friend, the publisher and art dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh. He married the latter's niece, Saskia, who had a social network in the local bourgeoisie from which he benefited.
He achieved his first success with the painting The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulp (1632). From 1631 to 1634, Rembrandt painted several self-portraits that were close to the Baroque codes of his painting style at the time (B. 7, B. 23). On the strength of this success, Rembrandt sought to establish himself on the art market, which was dominated by Rubens. He tried to transcribe the imagination he had shown in his paintings in his etchings, where he studied how to reproduce the effects of grisaille painting (B. 73, B. 81, B. 90, B. 77), without success until the Annunciation to the shepherds (B. 44). He did, however, manage to capture reality on the spot with great quality: Grande mariée juive (B. 340) and Faiseuse de koucks (B. 124), which "are two masterpieces in their genres".
He collected numerous works of art – notably by Annibale Carracci and Antonio Tempesta – which never failed to inspire him, as can be seen in Sainte Famille (B. 62) and Joseph et la femme de Putiphar (B. 39).
1636 was a pivotal year for Rembrandt: he achieved greater maturity in his treatment of self-portraits (B. 21), and opted for a humanist – albeit more classical – representation of biblical subjects (B. 91, B. 28), while at the same time displaying a heightened dramatic and baroque expression. Rembrandt also became more aware of the technical means of engraving: he made more precipitate and syncopated cuts in some (B. 91). Still, he was much more tender and nuanced in others, as in his studies of Saskia (B. 365, B. 367, B. 342) or in Jeune couple et la mort (B. 109). He began to exploit Drypoint with an early success, Death of the Virgin (B. 99), but did not use both on the same plate until 1641–1642.
The 1640s–1650s In 1639, Rembrandt discovered Raphael's Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, a revelation that had "a great aesthetic impact" on him.
The union of technique, style and poetry that was to become his style was born in the 1640s. He abandoned the exuberance of the Baroque for a more classical expression; early specialists attributed this shift towards introspection, intimacy, and a return to a more religious content - he intensified the luminous effects - in his biblical scenes to the dramas experienced by the artist at the time (Saskia died in 1642 and he had serious economic problems), while 20th-century writers put this theory into perspective and are more pragmatic. Rembrandt produced few works between 1642 and 1648, and his problems did not flare up again until 1650, a period of great productivity.
At the age of 40, he discovered the work of Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea Mantegna, who had a major influence on his future work, notably on The Hundred Guilder Coin (B. 74) and B. 34). Despite his setbacks, Rembrandt evolved through more human experiences and aesthetic concerns in tune with “the general trends of his time”. He thus embarked on a “very thorough and intimate study of landscape”, several years after having tackled the theme in painting. With a “captivating sincerity”, his landscapes benefit from a “suggestive, sparing line” that freshly evokes the details of the vastness of the Dutch landscape (B. 228, B. 208). He progressed in this genre thanks to his ability to see his subjects for himself and to “feel” the atmospheric quality of the landscape. The softer chiaroscuro and better integration of the subject into its environment, which would endure throughout his future work, can now be appreciated. He was also interested in “free subjects”, with the pastoral idyll (B. 187) and pure eroticism, with a couple in a very sensual attitude (B. 186), but abandoned commissioned portraiture, except his bourgeois clients (B. 285). His works in this genre benefited from more thoughtful, monumental compositions, abandoning trompe-l'œil effects in his painted and engraved portraits (B. 278).