Taken together these four paintings show Rembrandt’s brilliant skill as a painter, especially as a painter of people, as well as his deep knowledge of historical subjects and art history.
Traditionally, military paintings and group portraits tended to be relatively static settings or scenes with little or no movement. It is an extremely well-known piece of art for three separate reasons. Rembrandt initially began his education as a philosophy student at the University of Leiden, but left in 1620 to study as an apprentice to the renowned artist. She is clearly directing her gaze elsewhere, but to whom or to what? Rembrandts portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes. The Night Watch was painted in 1642 and is Rembrandt’s most famous painting. Closely examining two of Rembrandt’s anatomical paintings can provide students and practitioners with a new understanding of the foundation upon which rehabilitation sciences is based. While the image is a “portrait” of a young woman, it also gives the subject herself agency. At the same time, she looks askance, her face half-shrouded in darkness. Placing her hands firmly on the wooden ledge in front of her, she creates a physical barrier between herself and the viewer. However, in the Art Institute’s painting, the woman does not directly acknowledge us as a dear friend or valued customer but rather leans forward out of the door and, seemingly, out of the picture plane. This and other stylistic considerations are. Paintings in which the subject greets the viewer at a shop or house door are not uncommon indeed they date back to the Renaissance. Rembrandts portraits generally do not show such markedly different techniques in the face and the costume. No sitter was more readily available than Rembrandt himself, seen through his own looking glass. They were the most complete and accurate record of the physical appearance of any human being prior to the invention of photography. Costuming plays less of a role in Young Woman at an Open Half-Door by Rembrandt and his workshop instead it is the way in which the young woman interacts with the viewer that complicates the work. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) painted more than fifty self portraits.