As I begin this meditation, the magnets on my fridge have attracted my attention again rather than the candle flickering beside me. There is a new addition to my collection and a new acquisition for my miniature art gallery on the fridge doors: a Rembrandt.
It is a sketch, a self portrait, executed when the artist was only 24 years old. He looks startled and surprised as if someone has suddenly taken a photograph of him without his permission. Apparently, Rembrandt made the sketch while looking at his reflection in a mirror.
The actual picture, an etching, is not much bigger than the magnet itself. It is a small square printed in the middle of a foolscap sized parchment, which makes it look even smaller and almost enveloped by the sea of paper which surrounds it. It is one of a series of self portraits he made of himself in his twenties, most were sketches but there are several oil paintings too.
As might be expected, I have been to a gallery and of course a gift shop too! This time I visited the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, for the ‘Young Rembrandt’ exhibition, which covers the first ten years of his career from roughly 1625-1635. Rembrandt made portraits of himself throughout his life and in many ways the ones in old age are the most moving, perhaps because he also drew many pictures of old people throughout his career. Evidently, from looking at the exhibition, this fascination with old age began right at the start of his career. He captures the elderly sitters’ resignation beautifully in their eyes, sensing old age as a time of reflection and contemplation. Their passive eyes contrast with their faces, worn and redolent of a life lived. This contrast is acutely drawn in his own self portraits in old age much later.
The younger self portraits in the exhibition are more animated as you would expect from an artist in his twenties. He wears a variety of hats and facial expressions and sometimes he has a beard, sometimes a moustache or is sometimes clean shaven. He is evidently toying with his self image as young people will. On a deeper level, he is trying to find himself by drawing himself as he discovers and explores his talents and tries to establish a career.
He is going through what I have termed ‘the terrible twenties’. So many of my ex-students have shared this with me: not knowing who they are or what they want to do or having the confidence to embrace what they want to do anyway. I was the same at their age so I have a little understanding of their situation. At least Rembrandt knew what he wanted to do and from his work he appears to be bold and confident in his skills – or was he? We will never know I suppose.
Perhaps this series of self portraits over the years are saying ‘Where am I now?’ or even ‘Who am I now?’ These are questions not confined to our twenties. We can find ourselves asking these questions or they can find us at other times of our lives. They have been hounding me since I retired six months ago. Writing this blog has helped me to work out or at least explore some answers, like Rembrandt exploring himself through his pictures. Perhaps there is no need to find any answers but just to accept, to be resigned with patience as Rembrandt’s elderly models appear to be. In other words, to move from my terrible twenties to a reflective retirement. Then I might achieve a little of the dignity, serenity even, expressed in their eyes.
I have always been fascinated by the faces in Rembrandt’s works and the expression in their eyes. It must be the actor in me. He has the ability to convey a whole life in the faces of his models, through their stillness. Any film or TV actor should study his works. He conveys so much with the models’ faces, giving them an inner life. Their eyes lead us into their interior lives. It cannot be any accident that the popular historian, Simon Schama, has written a biography of the artist entitled ‘Rembrandt’s Eyes.’
What is also remarkable in the exhibition is that, as a young man , Rembrandt was fascinated by the beggars and homeless that he saw in the streets of his hometown Leyden and in Amsterdam, where he lived later. There are a selection of his drawings of street dwellers in the exhibition and he incorporates some of them into his large scale pictures of Biblical scenes, which were also a strand in his output.
In his drawings of street dwellers, he finds a dignified humility in their bowed heads and bodies. He also finds great patience: the patience of the beggar waiting for a coin (or hopefully a job) to come their way. Like them, we are waiting too: for an end to lockdown, an end to the era of the pandemic. Perhaps, as we wait, we can learn from their dignified patience or from that of the beggars and homeless we see in our own streets and perhaps even rethink our interaction with them.
The first lesson I ever taught was about Rembrandt. I was in the sixth form and we had a few single lessons every week called Elective General Studies, which were an appendage to our A Level General Studies course. Several teachers were able to give short courses on some of their special interests. These linked up somehow with the main A level. One gave a course on Renaissance Art which I attended. Of course in that bygone age there were no laptops or projectors or Internet to illustrate the lessons. Although I seem to remember he did use a slide projector so we could see some pictures or statues projected onto the wall of the medical room where the lesson took place! Strangely, as far as I can remember, there was never a sick pupil out of lessons in that medical room whenever we had our weekly lesson. Of course the teacher also used large art books for us to look at as examples.
Through those lessons I began to develop an interest in Fine Art ,which has stayed with me ever since. I watched documentaries on the TV and especially the BBC series ‘Civilisation’ which was on at that time. I also plundered my local library and wandered onto one lesson with a book on Rembrandt under my arm to and showed it to Fr Ledwick the teacher. He asked me if I’d like to give a talk on the artist so, ever eager to perform, I agreed and a few weeks later, I took the lesson. I prepared a selection of pictures to talk about and to explain why I liked them and what I found in them (as I have done in this blog).
At that time the country was going through a period of industrial action, known as the ‘three day week.’ This meant that there were regular electricity blackouts (among other disruptions). These would last for three hours at a time. As we had electric heating in our house, this was a problem. I remember that some evenings, I would do my homework by candlelight in the kitchen so that I could stay warm by the gas oven, which was lit to heat the room. My mum, who had two very small daughters, would sit near the oven to keep them warm. It is difficult to comprehend this these days and it was one reason why I would sometimes get annoyed with my own sixth form students when they didn’t do their homework!
I do remember looking at those pictures in the Rembrandt book by candlelight sometimes, and thinking that he must have looked at the real pictures himself by candlelight too. I felt quite privileged then. In the candlelight, the faces were luminous and the eyes were so clear. There was one, a head of Christ, which greatly nurtured my faith. Similarly I was reading ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte at the time for A Level English. How marvellous to read a 19th century novel by candlelight as it would have been originally! Emily’s Gothic romance seemed so much more atmospheric, if it ever could be!
And now, here I am once again, sitting by candlelight and writing to you about Rembrandt! Sharing my knowledge – as ever!
I also remember that just as I was about to start my little lesson on Rembrandt in that medical room in my school all those years ago, one of the PE staff wandered in. I can’t remember his name but he was rather obnoxious and I had been quite scared of him when I was younger! He decided to sit down and stay for my little lesson. It was my first lesson observation I suppose – though I knew nothing of them then. It certainly made me rather nervous. When the lesson finished, he came up to me and told me that he’d enjoyed the talk very much. ‘You ought to become a teacher’, he said. And eventually I did.
Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!
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Neilus Aurelius
Meditations of Neilus Aurelius 