Rembrandt: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Rembrandt's art grew out of Leiden workshop training, Amsterdam's print market, and secondhand knowledge of Italian painting absorbed through Utrecht Caravaggisti and reproductive engravings. This mix traces the teachers and oddities he collected, the townsmen he competed with, and the painters who later built careers on his shadows.

The Kynda mix for Rembrandt

• Key Influence · Orestes and Pylades Disputing at the Altar by Pieter Lastman (1614). Lastman was Rembrandt's teacher in Amsterdam around 1625, and the young painter absorbed his crowded, gesticulating history scenes, exotic costume and taste for the dramatic narrative instant. Lastman had studied in Italy and transmitted Italianate composition secondhand to a pupil who never crossed the Alps. Rembrandt's early Leiden histories reuse Lastman's poses and compressed stage-like groupings almost directly.
• Influencia Obscura · Mountain Landscape by Hercules Segers (c. 1625). Rembrandt owned several works by the near-forgotten Segers, whose experimental colour-printed etchings on cloth and paper were unlike anything else in Europe. He even reworked one of Segers's plates, turning a Tobias scene into a Flight into Egypt. Segers's ruined, hallucinatory landscapes and technical recklessness with acid and ink shaped Rembrandt's freest etched terrain.
• Local Roots · Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals (1624). Working in Haarlem, an hour from Amsterdam, Hals was the other pole of Dutch portraiture: loaded brush, visible strokes, sitters caught mid-breath. Their Dutch patron class overlapped, and both took on huge civic group portraits of militia and regents. Hals's open handling is the closest local precedent for the rough late manner Rembrandt's critics complained about.
• Beyond the Medium · Gijsbrecht van Aemstel by Joost van den Vondel (1637). Vondel's tragedy opened the new Amsterdam Schouwburg the year Rembrandt was the city's most fashionable portraitist, and its rhetoric of gesture and catastrophe belongs to the same civic culture. Rembrandt's history pictures are built like stage tableaux, with figures frozen at the decisive line; Vondel also wrote verses on paintings and on Amsterdam sitters Rembrandt portrayed.
• Peer · Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez (1656). Velázquez, born seven years before Rembrandt, was pursuing the same problem from Madrid: how loose paint at close range resolves into breathing presence at a distance. Both painted searching self-inclusion and unglamorous royal or civic sitters. The Spanish and Dutch courts traded pictures through the Antwerp market, and the two men's late handling has been compared since the nineteenth century.
• From the Canon · The Night Watch by Rembrandt (1642). Commissioned by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq's militia company for the Kloveniersdoelen, it turned the static Amsterdam group portrait into a surging movement of drums, pikes and light. Later cut down to fit Amsterdam's town hall, slashed twice in the twentieth century and acid-attacked once, it remains the picture around which Rembrandt's reputation and the Rijksmuseum itself are organised.
• Key Collaborator · The Raising of Lazarus by Jan Lievens (c. 1631). Lievens and Rembrandt, both Leiden-born, shared a studio and possibly models and props around 1628-1631; Constantijn Huygens compared them in his memoirs, praising Lievens's invention and Rembrandt's liveliness. They treated the same subjects so closely that attributions still shift between them, and Rembrandt owned works by Lievens at his 1656 insolvency inventory.
• Legacy · The Potato Eaters by Vincent van Gogh (1885). Van Gogh repeatedly invoked Rembrandt in letters to his brother Theo, and made a pilgrimage to see The Jewish Bride, saying he would give ten years of his life to sit before it. The Nuenen peasant heads and this dark lamplit supper are deliberate attempts at Rembrandt's earthy chiaroscuro and sympathy for unbeautiful faces before Paris brightened his palette.

What influenced Rembrandt

• Pieter Lastman. Rembrandt trained briefly under Lastman. (also via Orestes and Pylades Disputing at the Altar) “a brief but important apprenticeship of six months with the history painter Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam” (Wikipedia)
• Raphael (1483). Rembrandt's first-name signature practice inspired by Raphael's example. (also via The School of Athens) “was probably inspired by Raphael , Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo who, then as now, were referred to by their first names alone” (Wikipedia)
• Michelangelo (1475). Rembrandt's first-name signature practice inspired by Michelangelo's example. “Now the others in this league of this league of giants don't do this Michelangelo for instance brings us up to the rarefied ice with him where we can hardly breathe.” (Invitation To Art (public broadcasting))
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452). Rembrandt's first-name signature practice inspired by Leonardo's example. “Leonardo Leonardo looking at his art is is like looking at the sleeping face and wondering of green lies behind that Rembrandt is a fix it ends with the thing” (Invitation To Art (public broadcasting))
• Titian (1488). Rembrandt's later paint technique linked to Titian's influence. (also via Portrait of a Man) “His singular approach to paint application may have been suggested in part by familiarity with the work of Titian” (Wikipedia)
• Orestes and Pylades Disputing at the Altar by Pieter Lastman (1614). Orestes and Pylades Disputing at the Altar (Pieter Lastman) — titan for Rembrandt “After a brief but important apprenticeship of six months with the history painter Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam, Rembrandt stayed a few months with Jacob Pynas in 1625, though Simon van Leeuwen claimed that Rembrandt was taught by Joris va…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio (1600). The Calling of Saint Matthew (Caravaggio) — titan for Rembrandt “Among the more prominent characteristics of Rembrandt's work are his use of chiaroscuro, the theatrical employment of light and shadow derived from Caravaggio, or, more likely, from the Dutch Caravaggisti but adapted for very personal me…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Andrea Mantegna. Mantegna's Entombment cited as an influence on Rembrandt. “Borrowings and influences in his work can be traced to artists as diverse as Andrea Mantegna (with his Entombment )” (Wikipedia)
• Peter Paul Rubens. Rembrandt sought to emulate Rubens's baroque style. “seeking to emulate the baroque style of Rubens” (Wikipedia)
• William Shakespeare (1564). O'Doherty draws a cross-medium comparison between the emotional range of Rembrandt's lighting and the breadth attributed to Shakespeare's work. “Of creating a wide variety of mood and his range is as wide as has been said of Shakespeare.” (Invitation To Art (public broadcasting))
• Mughal painting. Rembrandt drew versions of some 23 Mughal miniatures in the 1650s and may have owned an album of them. “Rembrandt was interested in Mughal miniatures , especially around the 1650s. He drew versions of some 23 Mughal paintings and may have owned an album of them” (Wikipedia)
• Jacob van Swanenburg. Rembrandt's early apprenticeship under Swanenburg. “was soon apprenticed to Jacob van Swanenburg , with whom he spent three years” (Wikipedia)
• The School of Athens by Raphael (1509). Scholar Joseph Manca's interpretation links The Night Watch to Raphael's School of Athens. (via The Night Watch) “It alludes to serious works like The School of Athens by Raphael , and has been seen as humorous or parodic” (Wikipedia)
• Gijsbrecht van Aemstel by Joost van den Vondel (1637). Gijsbrecht van Aemstel (Joost van den Vondel) — culture for Rembrandt (wikidata.org)
• Mountain Landscape by Hercules Segers. Mountain Landscape (Hercules Segers) — ghost for Rembrandt “Rembrandt collected both paintings (he had eight) and prints by Seghers, and acquired one of his original plates, Tobias and the Angel (HB 1), which he reworked into his own Flight into Egypt (B 56), keeping much of the landscape.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Metamorphoses by Ovid (8). Metamorphoses (Ovid) — culture for Rembrandt (openlibrary.org)
• Portrait of a Man by Titian (1512). Portrait of a Man (Titian) — titan for Rembrandt “His singular approach to paint application may have been suggested in part by familiarity with the work of Titian, and could be seen in the context of the then current discussion of 'finish' and surface quality of paintings.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Vanitas Still Life by Jacques de Gheyn II (1603). Vanitas Still Life (Jacques de Gheyn II) — ghost for Rembrandt “His son, Jacob de Gheyn III, was born in 1596, and grew to become an engraver in his own right, as well as the subject of a portrait by Rembrandt.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. Castiglione listed among artists who influenced Rembrandt.
• Hercules Seghers. Hercules Seghers listed among artists who influenced Rembrandt.
• Anthony van Dyck. Van Dyck listed among artists who influenced Rembrandt.

Peers and kindred spirits

• Jan Lievens. Rembrandt shared a studio with Lievens. (also via The Raising of Lazarus) “Rembrandt opened a studio in Leiden, which he shared with friend and colleague Jan Lievens” (Wikipedia)
• Isaac Blessing Jacob by Govert Flinck (1638). Isaac Blessing Jacob (Govert Flinck) — collaborator for Rembrandt “He also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius (1654). The Goldfinch (Carel Fabritius) — collaborator for Rembrandt “A partial list should include Ferdinand Bol, Adriaen Brouwer, Gerrit Dou, Willem Drost, Heiman Dullaart, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Carel Fabritius, Govert Flinck, Hendrick Fromantiou, Aert de Gelder, Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten, Abrah…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals (1624). Laughing Cavalier (Frans Hals) — geography for Rembrandt “Contemporaries such as Rembrandt moved their households according to the caprices of their patrons, but Hals remained in Haarlem and insisted that his customers come to him.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Astronomer by Gerrit Dou. The Astronomer (Gerrit Dou) — geography for Rembrandt “In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou and Isaac de Jouderville.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer. The Milkmaid (Johannes Vermeer) — peer for Rembrandt “In 1971, The Love Letter was stolen from the Fine Arts Palace in Brussels, where it was on loan from the Rijksmuseum for the exhibition Rembrandt and his Age.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• View of Dordrecht by Jan van Goyen (1644). View of Dordrecht (Jan van Goyen) — geography for Rembrandt (wikidata.org)
• The Raising of Lazarus by Jan Lievens. The Raising of Lazarus (Jan Lievens) — collaborator for Rembrandt “== Career == In 1625, Rembrandt opened a studio in Leiden, which he shared with friend and colleague Jan Lievens.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez (1656). Las Meninas (Diego Velázquez) — peer for Rembrandt (wikidata.org)

Who Rembrandt influenced

• Caravaggio (1571). States Caravaggio influenced Rembrandt. (also via The Calling of Saint Matthew) “In the following generation of Dutch artists the effects of Caravaggio, although attenuated, are to be seen in the work of Vermeer and Rembrandt, neither of whom visited Italy” (Wikipedia)
• Nan Hoover (1931). The page says Hoover’s interest in light was deepened by studying Rembrandt’s paintings. “Her curiosity was enhanced through her visits to the Rembrandt van Rijn studies in oils in the Washington National Gallery of Art.” (Nan Hoover Foundation)
• Vincent van Gogh (1853). Van Gogh followed Rembrandt's practice of signing works with first name only. (also via The Potato Eaters) “His practice of signing his work with his first name, later followed by Vincent van Gogh” (Wikipedia)
• Govert Flinck (1615). Govert Flinck was a student of Rembrandt. (also via Isaac Blessing Jacob) “He also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck” (Wikipedia)
• Gerrit Dou (1613). Gerrit Dou studied under Rembrandt. (also via The Astronomer) “In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou and Isaac de Jouderville” (Wikipedia)
• Isaac de Jouderville (1612). Isaac de Jouderville studied under Rembrandt. “In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou and Isaac de Jouderville” (Wikipedia)
• Ferdinand Bol (1616). Ferdinand Bol was a student of Rembrandt. “He also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck” (Wikipedia)
• The Potato Eaters by Vincent van Gogh (1885). The Potato Eaters (Vincent van Gogh) — legacy for Rembrandt “His practice of signing his work with his first name, later followed by Vincent van Gogh, was probably inspired by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo who, then as now, were referred to by their first names alone.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Willem Drost (1633). Willem Drost was one of Rembrandt's closest and most talented pupils. “Willem Drost , about whom little is known” (Wikipedia)
• Edward Hopper. Hopper expressed admiration for Rembrandt, especially The Night Watch. “He was highly impressed by Rembrandt , particularly his Night Watch , which he said was "the most wonderful thing of his I have seen; it's past belief in its reality."” (Wikipedia)
• Reflection (Self-Portrait) by Lucian Freud (1985). Reflection (Self-Portrait) (Lucian Freud) — legacy for Rembrandt “And that was Rembrandt." Freud painted from life and usually spent a great deal of time with each subject, demanding the model's presence even while working on the background of the portrait.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Los Caprichos by Francisco Goya (1799). Los Caprichos (Francisco Goya) — legacy for Rembrandt (wikidata.org)
• David Hockney (1937). Hockney listed among artists who have studied Rembrandt's drawings extensively.