Although it was not the main reason for our visit to Amsterdam we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pay our respects to Rembrandt. There is a big exhibition at the Rijksmuseum entitled All the Rembrandts. Of course, it didn’t mean that all of his works were on show. It might have been entitled alternatively The Many Faces of Rembrandt . There were several of his great paintings here, but also a huge range of his prints, drawings and sketches.
I have to admit that I had not appreciated before what a prolific and skillful print-maker he was. A recent TV programme about him, although very good, did make him out to be rather self-centred. Here, however, he came over as somebody with a lively awareness of the conditions and life of the poor. He had a wicked, if rather randy, sense of humour.
One of the main points of interest for me was the room that not only containted the famous Night watch, but several other near-contemporary specimens of this genre by other artists. This type of “team photo” was evidently in demand. It is only when Rembrandt’s effort is placed alongside the competition, however, that you have the chance to see the superiority of his version. Even so, it really doesn’t strike me as being among his more memorable pieces. Maybe the TV programme was right. He needed the money….probably to cover the huge cost of all those copper plates for the etchings.