Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

1606 - 1669

Rembrandt's Members of the Drapers' Guild, or, Syndics of the Clothmasters' Guild, painted in the year 1662. It is just after sunset, you are standing in the silent Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

On the long wooden bench in front of you are two gentlemen, gazing at the very same portrait. One is a beautiful blond demon, an eternal youth. The other is a rather distinguished elderly Englishman. At the moment they seem completely enraptured, caught in an intense study of the beneficent faces returning their scrutiny.

This is scarcely the total effect of this picture. The faces are exquisitely beautiful, full of wisdom and gentleness and a near angelic patience. Indeed, these men more resemble angels than ordinary men. He reached over with his right hand and grasped my right arm. "I'm glad to see you as always, so very glad." He gave me a long lingering thoughtful look, and then he withdrew his hand, and his eyes moved back to the painting. "Are there any vampires in this world who have such faces?" he asked. "Vampires with such faces?" I responded. "David, that is unfair. There are no men with such faces. There never were. Look at any of Rembrandt's paintings. Absurd to believe that such people ever existed, let alone that Amsterdam was full of them in Rembrandt's time, that every man or woman who ever darkened his door was an angel. No, it's Rembrandt you see in these faces, and Rembrandt is immortal, of course."

On Lestat's theory about Rembrandt:

"With each portrait he understood the grace and goodness of mankind ever more deeply. He understood the capacity for compassion and for wisdom which resides in every soul.

But nowhere is this spiritual depth and insight more clearly manifest than in Rembrandt's self-portraits.
Why do you think he painted so many? They were his personal plea to God to note the progress of this man who, through his close observation of others like him, had been completely religiously transformed.
'This is my vision,' said Rembrandt to God."

Lestat de Lioncourt

Tale of the Body Thief
by Anne Rice

Here are some of the self-portraits Rembrandt left to us to trace his journey through time.
Rembrandt is indeed in the faces of his subjects. He transferred his divinity to them all, along with the profound secret he appeared to contain, an unattainable capacity for understanding seemingly beyond the grasp of ordinary mortals.

And yet, is his life progression as glimpsed through his self-portraits a result of some transcendental religious experience? I rather think that he was conducting an experiment. See the face of a young man, he perhaps thought, and that of the same man when he is old, with his life fading. Hold the two together and has anything greatly changed? Does the bright soul of youth still shine under the scarring of lengthy existence? And if not, exactly when does time begin to remold the unformed countenance?
In Rembrandt's case, you can decide. Here was a man who epitomized godliness with his very expression. Rembrandt was a living reference for the vague realm of mysticism.

And so, was Rembrandt inevitably transformed? Is it wisdom we see in his face at the very end? The kindness, compassion, patience and perception truly seem to be immortal qualities in this man, and yet what one might call a reflection of wisdom I would call sadness. More truly a melancholy sadness suffused with soft mirth and disillusionment, tempered above all, by an insightful acceptance.

Age 23

Age 28

Age 34

Age 54

Age 63
Age of death