Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I loved to draw, but since I didn’t come from a family of artists, famous works of art and famous artists weren’t things that I was exposed to a lot. This was way before the ubiquity of smart phones and the internet, so seeing art and being exposed to different artists was nearly impossible if you didn’t live close to galleries and museums, and I lived in the middle of nowhere in southwestern Pennsylvania. Because of that, I knew very little about art. I didn’t have art class in elementary school, and even when I had art in middle and high school, the inclusion of artists and art history wasn’t the norm the way it is now.
So, my biggest artistic influences at the time were the how to draw books that I checked out of the school library, especially the Draw 50 series. But of course there were some big name artists that I did hear of, and calling someone a Rembrandt when they could draw or paint was a fairly common expression. But my exposure was very limited, and I only had the World Book Encyclopedia that sat on the bottom shelf of the bookcase in the living room. I spent hours flipping through the pages and looking up some of those big name artists, and Rembrandt was one who stood out to me. I don’t recall exactly what the encyclopedia had on him, and it was probably a brief entry, maybe a page, probably less. Most likely, it only had a couple of images of his paintings, probably in back and white. But it was enough to capture my attention and etch him into my mind.
Once I got into college as an art education major, I was exposed to a lot of art and artists, especially in my art history classes, and Rembrandt still stood out and captured my imagination even more. I think it was, in part, my fascination with drawing and painting realistically, and artists like Rembrandt were the epitome of this aesthetic that I found so intriguing. I aspired to be able to draw and paint like these artists.
It wasn’t until my junior year in college when I was 20 that I saw my first Rembrandts in person. It was on a trip to Washington, DC sponsored by my university, and I remember being absolutely blown away standing in front of Rembrandt’s self-portrait from 1659 in the National Gallery of Art. As a painter, I marveled at the brushstrokes and how the paint was built up in the light areas and how multiple glazes of color were used to show the variations in the skin tone. One thing that really struck me was how impressionistic his painting was. More than 200 years before the Impressionists, Rembrandt was using thick brushstrokes and hinting at details. In the images presented by my art history professors and in my art history books, I never realized how the painting was done, but there in front of a real life Rembrandt, I just stood and marveled. I even got yelled at by security because I was a bit too close for comfort, but I just wanted to see it close up.
My style has changed a lot in the last 30 years, and I long ago gave up trying to draw and paint realistic looking art. Although I’m an abstract artist now who works mostly in non-representational art and uses bright, bold colors, I still marvel at Rembrandt’s technique and find his work inspiring.