Rembrandt
()
About this ebook
Read more from Mortimer Menpes
Venice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJapan A Record in Colour Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrittany Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhistler as I Knew Him Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Rembrandt
Related ebooks
Rembrandt by Menpes: Illustrated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt and His Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt and His Etchings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt (Illustrated): The Epic Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt: 272 Colour Plates Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rembrandt (1606-1669) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of Esther Singleton Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 21 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt: Details Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rembrandt Drawings:Colour Plates Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRijksmuseum Amsterdam: Highlights of the Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRembrandt - Painter, Engraver and Draftsman - Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDutch Etchers of the Seventeenth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best Portraits in Engraving Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hidden Masterpiece Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings149 Paintings You Really Should See in Europe — The Netherlands, Belgium, and Sweden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Collectors: Being Cases mostly under the Ninth and Tenth Commandments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe ultimate book on Rembrandt Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rembrandt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarmensz van Rijn Rembrandt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDutch Art in the Nineteenth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTeach Yourself Etching - The Basics of Etching, Drypoint and Aquatint Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEtching in England: With 50 illustrations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Buyer's Market: Book 2 of A Dance to the Music of Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Art For You
Lust Unearthed: Vintage Gay Graphics From the DuBek Collection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Draw and Paint Anatomy, All New 2nd Edition: Creating Lifelike Humans and Realistic Animals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Book of Drawing: Essential Skills for Every Artist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Picture This: How Pictures Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Comic Book Universe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Morpho: Anatomy for Artists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Drawing School: Fundamentals for the Beginner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Designer's Dictionary of Color Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Drawing and Sketching Portraits: How to Draw Realistic Faces for Beginners Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Complete Papyrus of Ani Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Botanical Drawing: A Step-By-Step Guide to Drawing Flowers, Vegetables, Fruit and Other Plant Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Art 101: From Vincent van Gogh to Andy Warhol, Key People, Ideas, and Moments in the History of Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anatomy for Fantasy Artists: An Essential Guide to Creating Action Figures & Fantastical Forms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shape of Ideas: An Illustrated Exploration of Creativity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales From the Loop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Draw Like an Artist: 100 Flowers and Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Electric State Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Rembrandt
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Rembrandt - Mortimer Menpes
PREFACE
Although I am familiar with Rembrandt's work, through photographs and black and white reproductions, I invariably experience a shock from the colour standpoint whenever I come in touch with one of his pictures. I was especially struck with that masterpiece of his at the Hermitage, called the Slav Prince , which, by the way, I am convinced is a portrait of himself; any one who has had the idea suggested cannot doubt it for a moment; it is Rembrandt's own face without question. The reproductions I have seen of this picture, and, in fact, of all Rembrandt's works, are so poor and so unsatisfactory that I was determined, after my visit to St. Petersburg, to devise a means by which facsimile reproductions in colour of Rembrandt's pictures could be set before the public. The black and white reproductions and the photographs I put on one side at once, because of the impossibility of suggesting colour thereby.
Rembrandt has been reproduced in photograph and photogravure, and by every mechanical process imaginable, but all such reproductions are not only disappointing, but wrong. The light and shade have never been given their true value, and as for colour, it has scarcely been attempted.
After many years of careful thought and consideration as to the best, or the only possible, manner of giving to those who love the master a work which should really be a genuine reproduction of his pictures, I have adapted and developed the modern process of colour printing, so as to bring it into sympathy with the subject. For the first time these masterpieces, with all the rich, deep colouring, can be in the possession of every one—in the possession of the connoisseur, who knows and loves the originals but can scarcely ever see them, and in that of the novice, who hardly knows the emotions familiar to those who have made a study of the great masters, but is desirous of learning.
At the Hermitage in St. Petersburg I was specially privileged—I was allowed to study these priceless works with the glass off and in moments of bright sunlight—to see those sweeps of rich colour, so full, so clear, so transparent, and broken in places, allowing the undertones to show through.
I myself have made copies of a hundred Rembrandts in order to understand more completely his method of work. And in copying these pictures certain qualities have been revealed to me which no one could possibly have learnt except by this means. Rembrandt worked more or less in two stages: first, by a carefully-painted monochrome, handled in such a way as to give texture as well as drawing, and in which the masses of light and shade are defined in a masterly manner; second, by putting on the rich, golden colour—mostly in the form of glazes, but with a full brush. This method of handling glazes over monochrome has given a gem-like quality to Rembrandt's work, so much so that you might cut out any square inch from any portion of his pictures and wear it as a jewel. And in all his paintings there is the same decorative quality that I have before alluded to: any picture by Rembrandt arrests you as a decorative patch—the grouping and design, and, above all, the balance of light and shade, are perfect.
MORTIMER MENPES.
CHAPTER I
THE RECOVERERS OF REMBRANDT
Imagine a man, a citizen of London, healthy, middle-aged, successful in business, whose interest in golf is as keen,