This summer’s Edinburgh exhibition (National Galleries of
Scotland) has reached the Royal Academy. Critics feel that this
is a less successful hang, however. Then there is the conjunction
with Auerbach’s exhibition, possibly too sharply disjunctive
a combination of ages and brilliance for some. If one were thinking
of double bills, de Kooning’s Women (see Archive) might have
been more harmonious. Historically, Rembrandt’s tender, cherishing
realism towards his female subjects seems to raise male hackles.
Sir Kenneth Clark once pronounced that he thought Rembrandt had
prospected far and wide ‘to find the most deplorable bodies
imaginable’. On a more recently complimentary basis Simon Schama
in his biography of Rembrandt (1999) found that Rembrandt was more
interested in himself than in his models. Nor could Schama quite
come to terms with the remarkable drawing by Rembrandt of a Danish
murderess hanging from the scaffold together with the murder weapon.
Or did it disturb a cosy ideal of Rembrandt? The divide between
art and life never frightened Rembrandt — he took life as he
found it, debts and all, and reacted with a realism tinged with
tenderness (see August Review and John Berger). For those who missed
this well-curated exhibition in its original location as conceived
in Edinburgh, the RA version is still too good to miss.
