Rembrandt

     Rembrandt is a Dutch artist that is known for his self-portraits and biblical scenes and is considered to be one of the greatest painters in European history. Rembrandt mainly created paintings, drawings and etchings. He was widely known for his precise brushwork, intense color, and his mastery of chiaroscuro. A vast majority of his paintings and drawings portrayed contempory Amsterdam life. Overall, Rembrandt's impressive mastering of light and shadow led him to leave an immense impact on the world and a key figure in the art world.
     A famous technique that Rembrandt mastered was chiarscuro. Chiarscuro is a painting technique that uses light and dark paints to create a three-dimensional perspective on a painting. This technique originated during the Renaissance and was thoroughly and impressively used by the one and only Leonardo da Vinci. Rembrandt took Leonardo's basic premise and truly mastered it. 
      The most famous piece, and my favorite, of Rembrandt's is the Night Watch. This piece was created in 1642 during an extremely tough year for Rembrandt due to the loss of three of his children and his wife. Despite his grief, and perhaps because of it, he was able to create a painting which leaves the viewer in awe. The Night Watch depicts a group of city guardsmen awaiting the command to fall in line. Each man is painted with the care that Rembrandt gave to single portraits, yet the composition is such that the separate figures are second in interest to the effect of the whole. The canvas is brilliant with color, movement, and light. In the foreground are two men, one in bright yellow, the other in black. The shadow of one color tones down the lightness of the other. In the center of the painting is a little girl dressed in yellow. This painting is truly astonishing to view because the scene is so naturalistic that the viewer feels as if they are right in the painting, and I truly believe that that is a very impressive and amazing effect of a painting.