The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp by Rembrandt van Rijn is a group portrait depicting the Guild of Surgeons meeting up for a public dissection, something that usually took place once a year. During this period of time, Rembrandt was basically reviving group portraits as the protestant Dutch no longer wanted art for the churches; this allowed Rembrandt as well as many other Dutch artists to take commissions from the middle class, who were pretty wealthy due to Netherland being in its golden age. This piece was commissioned by this middle class to show off to the population how diligent the Guild of Surgeons are as well as how smart Dr. Tulp must be for being the one to showcase this year’s public dissection.
A key inspiration I took from this piece was the fact that it was a group portrait, specifically one of a working environment. The difference is as The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp attempts to show the brilliance of Dr. Tulp in his workplace, my piece aims to show how displeased Squidward is in his.
Self-portrait by Rembrandt depicts himself very naturally & with tons of attention to detail, which makes sense cause this came from the North. Chiaroscuro is applied heavily to this painting, making use of a dark background along with dark clothing to put more emphasis on his face, especially the level of detail he put into painting his own face. There also happens to be a lot of pigments used in his face like reds, greens, blues, & yellows intermixed with the shading & highlights that really make his face pop out. This self-portrait was definitely used as a means to show a patron how detailed his work can be.
The inspirations I drew from this piece are the use of chiaroscuro as well as the painterly art style Rembrandt uses for this piece. The chiaroscuro inspiration is pretty obvious with the lighting, but as for the painterly effect, if you zoom in quite a bit you can still make out some of the brushstrokes.
