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Aziz Art January2018

History of art(west and middle east)- contemporary art

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Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn<br />

15 July 1606 -- 4 October 1669<br />

was a Dutch draughtsman, painter,<br />

and printmaker. An innovative and<br />

prolific master in three media, he is<br />

generally considered one of the<br />

greatest visual artists in the history<br />

of art and the most important in<br />

Dutch art history. Unlike most<br />

Dutch masters of the 17th century,<br />

Rembrandt's works depict a wide<br />

range of style and subject matter,<br />

from portraits and self-portraits to<br />

landscapes, genre scenes,<br />

allegorical and historical scenes,<br />

biblical and mythological themes<br />

as well as animal studies. His<br />

contributions to art came in a<br />

period of great wealth and<br />

cultural achievement that<br />

historians call the Dutch Golden<br />

Age, when Dutch art although in<br />

many ways antithetical to the<br />

Baroque style that dominated<br />

Europe, was extremely prolific and<br />

innovative, and gave rise to<br />

important new genres. Like many<br />

artists of the Dutch Golden Age,<br />

such as Jan Vermeer of Delft,<br />

Rembrandt was also known as an<br />

avid art collector and dealer.<br />

Rembrandt never went abroad,<br />

but he<br />

was considerably influenced<br />

by the work of the Italian masters<br />

and Netherlandish artists who had<br />

studied in Italy, like Pieter Lastman,<br />

the Utrecht Caravaggists, and<br />

Flemish Baroque Peter Paul<br />

Rubens. Having achieved youthful<br />

success as a portrait painter,<br />

Rembrandt's later years were<br />

marked by personal tragedy and<br />

financial hardships. Yet his etchings<br />

and paintings were popular<br />

throughout his lifetime, his<br />

reputation as an artist remained<br />

high, and for twenty years he<br />

taught many important Dutch<br />

painters.<br />

Rembrandt's portraits of his<br />

contemporaries, self-portraits and<br />

illustrations of scenes from the<br />

Bible are regarded as his greatest<br />

creative triumphs. His self-portraits<br />

form a unique and intimate<br />

biography, in which the artist<br />

surveyed himself without vanity<br />

and with the utmost<br />

sincerity.Rembrandt's foremost<br />

contribution in the history of<br />

printmaking was his transformation<br />

of the etching process from a<br />

relatively new reproductive<br />

technique into a true art form,<br />

along with Jacques Callot. 1

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