The Night Watch by Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. An prolific master in three media, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art and the most important in Dutch art history. From portraits and self-portraits to landscapes, genre scenes, allegorical and historical scenes, and biblical and mythological themes as well as animal studies, his contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age.
Rembrandt never went abroad, but he was considerably influenced by the work of the Italian masters and Netherlandish artists who had studied in Italy, like Pieter Lastman, the Utrecht Caravaggists, and Flemish Baroque Peter Paul Rubens.
Perhaps the most famous painting is the work by Rembrandt known as The Night Watch. It is a group portrait of a militia company. These were groups of able-bodied men who, if the need arose, could be called upon to defend the city or put down riots. The painting was commissioned around 1639 by Captain Banning Cocq and seventeen members of his Kloveniers (civic militia guards). Eighteen names appear on a shield, painted circa 1715, in the center-right background, as the hired drummer was added to the painting for free. A total of 34 characters appear in the painting. Rembrandt was paid 1,600 guilders for the painting (each person paid one hundred), a large sum at the time.
The painting is famous for three things: its colossal size (363 cm × 437 cm (11.91 ft × 14.34 ft)), the dramatic use of light and shadow (tenebrism) and the perception of motion in what would have traditionally been a static military group portrait. The painting was completed in 1642, at the peak of the Dutch Golden Age. It depicts the eponymous company moving out, led by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq (dressed in black, with a red sash) and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch (dressed in yellow, with a white sash). With effective use of sunlight and shade, Rembrandt leads the eye to the three most important characters among the crowd: the two men in the center (from whom the painting gets its original title), and the woman in the centre-left background carrying a chicken. Behind them, the company’s colors are carried by the ensign, Jan Visscher Cornelissen. The figures are almost life-size.
