November 13, 2011–FEBRUARY 5, 2012
About the Artists
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN (1606–1669)
Rembrandt was one of the defining figures of the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age. Born in Leiden, where he began his artistic career, he moved to Amsterdam in his mid-twenties and rapidly became successful. He made his reputation with large-scale portraits of wealthy citizens and with representations of scenes from the Bible, along with landscapes, genre scenes, and smaller-scale portraits. He was a skilled draftsman and a highly innovative etcher who observed his subjects directly and often presented them with both uncompromising realism and considerable dramatic intensity.
EDGAR DEGAS (1834–1917)
Edgar Degas was born in Paris and briefly received a conventional art education based on traditional techniques and subject matter. His early work often centered on standard, historical subjects, based on his study of past masters. In his late twenties he began to paint contemporary city life, and he became one of the founding members of the Impressionist group. His work was often radically experimental in form, but perhaps thanks to his early training, he maintained an interest in traditional subjects like portraiture for many years. He also excelled in a range of forms, including etching, sculpture, and later, photography, as well as painting.
VOLUME 59 (2011)/2
This recent volume of The Rijksmuseum Bulletin includes an essay entitled “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Edgar Degas Inspired by Rembrandt,” by Jenny Reynaerts (Senior Curator of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings at the Rijksmuseum and curator of the exhibition in Amsterdam) and Stella Versluis-Van Dongen (Rijksmuseum intern 2010-11, and co-researcher for the Bulletin essay and exhibition in Amsterdam).
The Rijksmuseum Bulletin is the English language academic journal of the Rijksmuseum, published quarterly. It offers scholarly articles contributing to the historical and art-historical research of the collections of the Rijksmuseum to an international audience of curators, scholars, students, art professionals and enthusiasts.
The Rijksmuseum Bulletin is published by the Rijksmuseum Publications Department.
Editors: Jan de Hond, Jenny Reynaerts, Marijn Schapelhouman
Printing: ÈPOS | PRESS, Zwolle