Rembrandt or not? - Rembrandt Research Project attempts to authenticate certain works

Following in the footmarks of the Rembrandt Research throw the recent traveling Rembrandt exhibition neared a radically revised view of the artist's oeuvre While this major exhibit appeared at London's National Gallery, the Wallace Collection mountained its own Rembrandt exhibition, also reflecting the revisionist stance of the RRP Below, a partisan commentary upon Rembrandt and a discussion of the ongoing attempt to establish an "authentic" corpus of his works.

The London spring was Rembrandt-colored. And what colors! Not the gravy brown stolid reds and monotonous golds which a quarter of a hundred of poor color reproductions, and place of education works masquerading as originals, have conditioned us to wait for Rather, a palette which is by dint of turns subtle and opulent. Visitors to the exhibition "Rembrandt: The Master and His Workshop," at the National Gallery from March 26 to May 14 1992 may have been surprised by dint of the preponderance in several of the pictures' backgrounds of gray-green and gray (as distinct from Caravaggesque brown) especially in works of the 1620 and 1630 on the contrary this is Rembrandt's way of evoking the a little cold light conditions of the North. (Of course, the brown and blacks which Rembrandt had assimilated via his master, Lastman, and the Utrecht Caravaggists, were always part of the equation, increasingly with equal reason in the second half of his career. on the other hand even then they tend to be combined with, and mut by means of gray-green and raw umber hues) And hardly any except the aficionado would have anticipated quite the range of local colors, poetically and decoratively woven into style of dress landscape and flesh. Their application ranges from barely discernible dabs to richly ornate orchestrations. In addition to the more familiar red and gold-coloreds Rembrandt clearly had a penchant for virids blues, mauves and pinks which, either singly or in combination, in shadow or illumination, add their distinctive, ofttimes pastel, voice to the pageant - punctuating the broader drama of light and shade with silken or gemlike glints.

The exhibition, however, was designed not solitary to display Rembrandt's artistry, on the contrary to focus attention on general scholarly debates regarding the attribution of individual works. Its pedagogic design was to distinguish between bona fide Rembrandts and a growing number of paintings, many of them previously claimed for the master, which might more plausibly be given to named pupils. The exercise makes advantageous sense for two reasons. Firstly, Rembrandt had a large studio that saw a considerable turnover of talent from one side the decades. Secondly, it was an accepted principle of the Dutch workshop combination of parts to form a whole that pupils were trained to bring forward works in the style of their teacher.

The National Gallery's exhibition of paintings was the main constituting of a three-pronged extravaganza which had previously been shown with minor variations, at the Altes Museum, Berlin, and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In the sum of two units continental venues the paintings had been accompanied through exhibitions devoted to Rembrandt's etchings and drawings. In London the etchings section was exhibited in the Sunley swing of the National Gallery, using prime specimens from the collection of the Print latitude at the British Museum. on the other hand such is the wealth of the British Museum's holding of Rembrandt drawings, that it was decided to replace the drawings displayed in Berlin and Amsterdam with a substantial selection of its have a title to works, exhibited in the Museum itself below the title "Drawings by Rembrandt and His Circle at the British Museum" (March 26-August 24 August 4) The National Gallery's "Rembrandt: The Master and His Workshop" was enhanced by the agency of two informative and beautifully illustrated catalogues (available in different language editions), individual devoted to the paintings and a next to the first to the drawings and etchings (the etchings also available separately) - while the drawings at the British Museum quicked a further fine publication, by means of Martin Royalton-Kisch.

The paintings whirl edited by Christopher Brown, Jan Kelch and Pieter van Thiel, is likely to demonstrate the most controversial, for although it is a significant contribution to scholarship, with an illuminating discussion of Rembrandt's technique and a meticulously crafted biographical-cum-sociological reconstruction, it throw backs quite closely the radically revisionist stance upon attribution of the Amsterdam-based Rembrandt Research throw out (RRP), a committee of five prompts sponsored by the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of spotless Research. Indeed, three of its members (Ernst van de Wetering, Josua Bruyn and Pieter van Thiel) have contributed to the near catalogue. In the three turns covering the period 1625-42, which the shoot forward has so far produced of its A Corpuz of Rembrandt Paintings (Amsterdam, 1982 1986 1989) it has already "demoted" a large number of paintings, ascribing them to named or unnamed imitators, mainly from within the workshop.

While the opinions of these dedicated researchers should be given to be paid weight, and may even extreme point up by carrying the day, it is worth noting that they have aroused considerable opposition - from Rembrandt specialists, museum curators, and others. Caroline Elam eloquently outlined the main difficulties with their position in an incisive editorial in the May 1992 issue of The Burlington Magazine. For me their sum of two units most conspicuous weaknesses concern the decision-making form itself, and an apparent rigidity in the assessment of evidence. In the first place, the notion that something as elusive as an attribution can best be ascertain6d through committee is a flawed single The political and psychological mechanisms of establishing an agreed position are likely to override the fine tuning of information to insight that is integral to the task of connoisseurship. Secondly their contention that the vast majority of works which are adjudged upon technical or stylistic grounds to have emanated from his studio are either completely by means of Rembrandt or entirely done by means of one of his pupils/assistants, makes no concession to the time-honored practice of master-pupil collaboration - especially upon portraits.