"THE HIGH! WATCH.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16662, 18 February 1922, Page 15

"THE HIGH! WATCH.”

PICTURE THAT RUINED REMBRANDT. When Rembrandt. ** Prince of Shad* ovrs,” was in his early twenties, he left the old university town of Leyden, where he was born, and went to Amsterdam to make his fortune as an artist (writes Gene Berton in the *' Mentor”). By the time he was thirty he was the richest and most famous painter in Holland. But in another ten years friends, popularity and fortune were lost to him, and the chief cause of his downfall was the best picture be ever painted, “ The Night "Watch.** » . * LIGHT AND SHADOW. He was already well established when ho met the auburn-haired. Saskia Uylenborch at her cousin’s picture More. Their life for eight years was like a Rembrandt painting. It varied between brightest light and darkest shadow. They lived in a splendid house, tilled with extravagantly beautiful furnishings. Rembrandt was ever weary painting his attractive wife, decked in brocades and jewels. He gained equal renown for his art, his possessions, his gay spirits ISnd his headstrong, profligate habits, lie painted his sitters in his effective, original way, and never paid any attention to their wishes. Patrons demurred, but they did not desert him until the trouble over “ The Night Watch*’ started. Tn 1642. when he was about thirty-five. he began this great canvas, which shows the civic guard of Amsterdam leaving the company quarters. Actually, the sortie was in the daytime. The sombreness of the shadows led critics of a later era to think ifc represented a night scene. AMSTERDAM GUARD. In the large towns of Holland the aristocracy organised to keep order in the streets. Rembrandt was asked to paint tlio pictures of Franz Banning Cook, of the Amsterdam guard, and his rich young aides. The cost was to Ik* divided between twenty-five or thirty members. Rembrandt, at the height of his powers, readily accepted the commission, foreseeing how he should make the canvas trlow and move in brilliant sun and velvet shadow. The < hief portrait interest was centred on Captain Cock and his lieutenant. The rest of the group were mere puppets for Rembrandt’s brush to play with. Mo made a masterpiece—he_himself had infinite satisfaction in it? for it expressed, as no picture had ever done before, his gift for handling light and variations of light. But the guardsmen were far from pleased. Except lor the few whose fares were clearly to lm seen, all refused to pay their share. The disgruntled guardsmen and their friends withdrew their patronage from the master. From that time his face was turned towards the valley of shadows. His beloved Saskia Had died His house and goods were sold to pay bis debts. Tie bad but one son living, and then the son. Titus, died too Poor, lonely, disparaged. Rembrandt spent bis last years creating pictures ♦ hat are now almost beyond price. When he died, at the age of sixty-two, there was hardly enough left in his purse to bury him.