Assumption is a real spoiler. One has heard it often and also experienced the fatalistic element of assumptions. But one still goes on to assume. It has become a habit. But on a rare occasion, assuming didn’t disappoint but rather surprised. ‘Ah! Rembrandt’, who would come to watch it! It would be an almost empty hall. I was late for the 7:45 show in the evening at PVR Koramangala in Bangalore, as usual. 45 minutes isn’t enough to cover a distance of 10 kms in Bangalore given its utterly chaotic traffic. I made it by 8 and felt grateful enough. As I climbed up to my row K, my peripheral vision registered human presence. Taken in, I looked up to have a clear view of the auditorium and found 60 per cent occupancy of the hall. In times of Bajrangi Bhaijaans and Baahubalis , for a documentary on a Dutch artist to be able to get that many viewers was something incredible.
PVR Cinemas screened the film “Rembrandt” directed by Kat Mansoor in its halls across India on July 22 and 29. Coming to the film, it is based on a major show of Rembrandt hosted by London’s National Gallery and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum from February to May 2015. The artist was born in the Netherlands in 1606 and passed away in 1669. The landmark exhibition focused on the final years of the painter’s life – from the time he touched heights of success till he was declared bankrupt. Shots of the exhibition are interspersed with interviews of Betsy Wieseman, curator of the show and Jonathan Bikker, Curator of Research at the Rijksmuseum, Gregor JM Weber, Head of Fine Arts, Rijksmuseum, Philosopher AC Graylin and others. These descriptions coupled with languid shots of the exhibition, zooming in on the paintings highlighting all its details, made it all so real and visceral for museum-going viewers like me. “The Sampling Officials” is a group portrait done by the master artist in 1662, when the genre was known as corporate portrait. The men he painted are the syndics of the Amsterdam Drapers Guild. It could have been a posed stiff portrait but Rembrandt, master of drama, breathes life into it. The men are depicted as if they are expecting a visitor and a syndic is who is about to sit, is also painted looking in the same direction. Bikker is so true when he says there is no distance between us and the sitters. These scholars go into the detail to bring out his technical mastery which established him as one of the greatest painter in European art history. Betsy dissects one of his most poignant work – Lucretia, a Roman lady, whose rape triggered Roman revolution. She describes the portrayal as evocative and vivid. Her resignation to fate comes across in the dark hollows of her eyes, in the tilt of her head. Betsy goes on to explain the technical finesse of the work – the roughness of the square ridges rendered by the palette knife on her sleeves in contrast to the smooth texture of the gossamer-thin fabric of her dress. Theses explanations are woven with information about his personal life, making it a cogent narrative. The personal story of his life — his marriage with Saskia, how the couple lost three kids to diseases, his liaison with Hendrickje Stoffels, an ostentatious house in Amsterdam, a penchant for collecting art and finally Rembrandt’s bankruptcy — is effectively told through animation.
The ending is concluded with the scholars analysing the factors that led to the artist’s downfall — emergence of new crop of artists, his personal life, his style that had supposedly become outdated, etc. More interestingly, philosopher AC Grayling speaks about his fascination for self-portraits. He sees it as Rembrandt’s exploration of the relationship between the self and the world.
