Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called "one of the great prophets of civilization.". Rembrandt painted his own portrait frequently, from his amazing 1629 work The Artist in His Studio (in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, it shows the young painter standing back from his canvas in a moment of courage and dread, aware of the scale of his task) to this, one of his last paintings, done in the final year of his life. "Rembrandt: The Late Works" at The National Gallery, London. We utilize only the finest oil paints and high quality artist-grade canvas to ensure the most vivid color. The blemishes on his forehead are formed of blotches of coagulated paint. He died on 4 October 1669 and was buried in the Westerkerk in Amsterdam. The sale list survives and gives us a good insight into Rembrandt’s collections. Despite his impending death, Rembrandt presents a self-assured and confident self. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The beam bounces off his high forehead and the tip of his nose; it catches on his mottled, pitted brow and the tufts of hair around his lips. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Please try again. He painted them for different reasons – to practise different expressions, to experiment with lighting effects, and also to sell to wealthy patrons and collectors. Rembrandt employed his usual rather limited palette of lead white, ochres and red lakes. Painting needs 3 weeks and shipping takes 1 week. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/rembrandt-self-portrait-at-the-age-of-63. Rembrandt deliberately diminished the impact of the hands to draw attention to the face and the eyes. His paintings are not concerned with visual pleasure for its own sake, but only in so far as it leads to knowledge. There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. He uses layers too: like skin, oil paint is semi-transparent, so Rembrandt builds up translucent layers and colours – the greys and whites, pinks, purples and pasty yellows which he sees in his own face. Despite the closeness of his death, Rembrandt makes an … Self-portrait at the Age of 63, Rembrandt (1669) ... Darkness is his friend, because in darkness the self is isolated. The sagging fold beneath his right eye is made with the swirl of a heavily-loaded brush. He had been in charge of the company’s fleet, which had sailed home from the East Indies in December 1633 and was to leave Holland again on 2 May 1635, shortly after this pi... Saskia van Uylenburgh, the daughter of a burgomaster of Leeuwarden in Friesland, was Rembrandt’s first wife. But he changed his mind, apparently to avoid distracting the viewer from the detail of his face. Self-Portrait at the Age of 63 is a self-portrait by the Dutch artist Rembrandt, now in the National Gallery, London. This is not like looking at a painting. They were not portraits of individuals – the identity of the sitter wouldn‘t have been considered relevant, either to the artist or the person who bought the painting. Here his intentions are not so clear. Rembrandt painted large-scale likenesses of each, which were originally designed to hang together. We not only reproduce every detail of the original painting, but to capture its soul. He tries on exotic costumes, poses - because each time he is trying to discover who he is. The paint here is different. The National Gallery has two of them, separated by nearly thirty years. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Help keep us free by making a donation today. He began by making an oil sketch on paper, then tore out a section and mounted the rest on canvas. This is one of the largest paintings ever made by Rembrandt, and one of only two life-size equestrian portraits of ordinary citizens in the history of Dutch art. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history. Despite the closeness of his death, Rembrandt makes an impression of a self-assured and confident artist. But he painted them out.