According to some philosophers “La Petite Tombe” would most probably be
considered a great work of art, this is my opinion too. Rembrandt is one of very
few painters known around the world and valued as an addition to human history.
Praised by the art world long time ago and until today. It also considers
Rembrandt’s work as great, professional, expressive and impressive.
However its’ greatness can be analyzed and criticized, which I will try to do
in this paper. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Riju was born July 15, 1606 in the town
of Leiden, Netherlands. One of the seven children he was the only one who
received Higher Education, all of his siblings went into trade. Leiden was a
University town with favorable education atmosphere. Upon graduating from the
Leiden high school where students primarily learned Latin, and “true religion”
(Calvinistic Protestantism) Rembrandt enrolled into a Leiden University, which
by 1620s was internationally renowned.
Not very eager for education he pretty soon became an apprentice of Jacob
Isaacszoon Swandenburgh, and showed promise in painting, so his father found it
good to apprentice him and to take him to the renowned painter P. Listman,
residing in Amsterdam so that he might advance himself and be better trained and
educated. During the seventeen’s century history painters enjoyed the highest
prestige, higher even then portrait painters.
Since history painters could give their imagination a certain freedom, depict
and arrange their compositions as they please. In comparison portrait painters
had little variation to work with to express themselves. This is why Rembrandt
wanted to become a history, or religion painter. This era would probably be more
favored by Tolstoy then by Plato. Although the paintings still presented the
objects close or were identical to what we see in life, the fantasy of the
artists began to take over the order of the objects, leaning towards the more
historical, religious perspective, something Tolstoy would love.
A piece of art from that era by Rembrandt of a religious context is an
etching called “La Petite Tombe”, also known as “Christ Preaching”. The subject
here is a gathering of common people around Jesus Christ, who is preaching “the
remission of sins, an event that does not occur in the Gospels, but which played
an important part in the Mennouite doctrine”. (Clark, p. 183) Rembrandt has many
religious paintings and etchings in his collection, and in all of them he keeps
his style of presentation.
A little bit rough, and expressive. His characters on one hand are not
explicitly detailed, but on the other all have their own unique points of
interest, and expressive quality. If Plato were shown this etching he would
probably be satisfied with it, since it meets all his conditions to be defined
as good art. He argues that to be considered “art” at all, a piece of someone’s
work, whether it is a painting, etching, poem etc., has to resemble identically
a life that we see, and how we perceive it.
