Word: rembrandt
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Whether done as studies or for their own sake, all the drawings are strangely affecting. Leonardo's Leda-possibly a study for the painting that has been lost-has a sensual rhythm not often revealed by Leonardo. Rembrandt's landscapes and village scenes are masterful mixtures of meticulousness and freedom. Holbein could almost carve with his crayon, and Rubens, with his delicate and flowing line, could transform an act of drudgery into an act of grace. Somehow, the workings of genius are never more clear than in drawings of the quality of the collection at Chatsworth...
...their compositions or what sort of scene or gesture would catch their eye and cry out for immediate recording. But they were not only blueprints; they were often masterpieces in themselves. Leonardo's Leda (see opposite page) almost bursts out of her paper world; a landscape by Rembrandt sweeps up the eye, leads it to fill in details where the artist left only hints...
...second duke, who succeeded to the title in 1707 and was, according to one contemporary account, "a gentleman of very good sense, a bold orator, and zealous assertor of the liberty of the people.'' An example of his very good sense was his purchase of Rembrandt drawings in a day when that titan was temporarily out of fashion...
...duke scored a coup by buying more than 200 drawings from the collection of Nicolaes Flinck, the son of a Rembrandt pupil. He also beat out Louis XIV in purchasing a volume of drawings that the French Landscape Painter Claude Lorrain had done as a record of his own paintings...
...also decide what to make of Visconti's frequent use of chiaroscuro. Is there any further point, beyond mere decoration in all that flickering night light? Shadows shift and fade so often that at first I thought the print might be faulty. But no. Apparently Visconti wanted to "put Rembrandt on film." That is, he took a painterly technique and set it in motion. Intellectually this may sound fine, but it doesn't make much sense on the screen unless the director supports the tone of his narrative with it. In this case, he made me squint...