Rembrandt: The Jewish Bride
Sometimes I feel lost for words when starting writing about another artist for this site. It feels like I have used up all of the good epithets that describe emotion, intimacy and humanism. I am afraid that I won’t be able to express myself accurately on the subject of human sentiment, because I tried to do my best (and even better, which is not good) when this triad wasn’t the main theme as it is with Rembrandt — what would I be left with? So I place some hope in this small complaint, and will try to scrub the words of their previous given meaning and re-energize them with a fresh one. One must, because if Rembrandt could revivify these concepts with paint, whoever writes on Rembrandt should be able to follow the linguistic suit. The most suitable description for feelings displayed in this piece is how real and immediate they are: they don’t represent any religious notions or any distant mythical passions; they belong to the people, who are caught in the moment of experiencing them. The experience itself becomes the true, sought for goal and value.
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The background is almost blank showing only a few shapes of architecture, and some trees and leaves. The source of light is unclear. Light could come from above or from the viewer’s direction; but, it doesn’t matter, because the faces of the couple seem to glow by themselves, which was apparently the artist’s way of intensifying the mood. The softness of the light marks the feelings as being appropriately gentle, tender and sweet. The gestures reaffirm what the facial features express, and particularly charming is the fact that the groom and the bride don’t look directly into each other’s eyes; their gazes, the girl’s blush and the spontaneous awkward movements reveal shyness, embarrassment from the moment — which the young man tries to dispel in a somewhat clumsy, though loving embrace. These newlywed man and woman look inside themselves, as if wishing to savor the moment and imprint it into their memories.
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The composition is fairly classical in its pyramid shape. The hands of the actors constitute the most physically animated part of the scene and evince complex symmetry; it seems as though these body parts play an ornamental compositional role, decorating the otherwise simplified scene. The garments, though rich and festive, cannot vie with the richness of the facial expressions, and, in fact seem to sit uncomfortably on the wearers. What sets this piece apart from the renaissance artwork I discussed earlier is the encompassing naturalism and realism of the subjects. A stylistic break makes itself clearly visible, with notable tendencies towards more realistic play of light and darkness, less rigid composition and a shift towards intimacy and individualization, as opposed to grand spiritual generalization of the Renaissance. Though all of these changes can be attributed only to Rembrandt, most of them reappear in contemporary artwork, conjoined as the main components of European Baroque painting.
P.S. The groom resembles Gary Oldman.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 7:28 pm and is filed under Baroque, Rembrandt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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