Rembrandt and Me

Rembrandt's Studio  Museum Het Rembrandthuis Jodenbreestraat 4, Amsterdam

I begin this blog as a blank canvas. A canvas to help me better understand science and its unexpected relationships, juxtapositions and anachronisms with art, culture, and history. Essentially everything for which I have a passion.  As I am currently in the Netherlands, it is appropriate that my first blog explore one of the Dutch Masters. I choose Rembrandt because I suspect he was a conflicted scientist as well.

He explored. He systematically tried new media. He painted on linen, cooper, and wood canvases.  Is it fair to call painting in the 17th century a social media? Was it the blog of its day? Rembrandt's paintings attracted a broad audience.

Rembrandt, has drawn me into his world. I am attracted by his inspiration from nature and his use of the color red. As I visited his home and workshop, I was surprised to find butterflies, beetles, seashells and all sorts of biological, cultural and artistic things displayed in the manner of a scientist, catalogued, and encased.

Rembrandt's  Nature Collections (note tortoise shells on the right hand-side of the photo)

The chemistry of color. The Museum Het Rembrandhuis describes Rembrandt as using only 15 pigments throughout his entire career. Contributing to his mastery of color was his ability to develop and mix pigment. He used lead for white; bones for black; Lapis Lazuli for blue. His famous red pigment was derived from cochineal beetles!  And 300 years later we still use these beetles. Today we  use them to add a reddish color to Strawberry Frappucino's!  Last March Starbucks was embroiled in controversy over the use of a natural FDA approved cochineal beetle food coloring.  Here is the link to the Washington Post article www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-well controversy/2012/03/30/glQA7QAylS_blog.html

Rembrandt, it seems was not conflicted by the relationship between science and art. He captured the synergies and organized his paintings around color and nature within a systematic framework and a world where the macro and micro-details of both disciplines combine and emerge into monumental achievements.

Newly discovered Painting by Rembrandt 

Don't you just love Vermeer ! Sigh!!!