How to Paint a Rembrandt

How to Paint like Rembrandt*
Over about 15 weeks this winter and spring, Creative
Workshop drawing and painting teacher Sarah Hart
(after asking for permission and being granted the
opportunity) embarked on a project to paint a copy of
Portrait of a Young Man in an Armchair by Rembrandt
Harmensz. Van Rijn in the Memorial Art Gallery’s
permanent collection.
The process was documented by photographer
Gary Graham. The narrative is in Sarah’s own words.
February 15
Initial lay‐in. Gary (the photographer) and I were startled by how light the face and hands are in the photographs compared to my canvas. I think it is a bouncing light effect from the first layer of yellow ochre ground.
February 15. My canvas is much narrower than the original and I didn’t initially
compensate for the space where the hands would go. Gallery copying rules require the
dimensions to be slightly altered so they are not exactly the same size
Sarah’s copy
Rembrandt’s painting
February 15
I use a mirror to correct my drawing. The laying-in stage is
my best opportunity to see the big angles that are off.
Inverting the image gives me a fresh eye and is a technique
Leonardo DaVinci used.
February 15
The process was action‐packed. I worked freehand because this is an element of the painting and that is the way Rembrandt would have worked too. This was my answer when people asked why I didn’t use a grid to do the beginning drawing. I would go up and measure and decide what to do and sometimes get to the easel and forget and have to go back and re‐calculate. February 29
I use a string to make comparison checks. For example, I might be checking how
much higher one eye is than the other. I will then go and make the same check on
the original. I have to be careful to stand the same distance away with each check. I
can also use the string in a vertical manner. This string has a weight on it and it’s
called a “plumb line.”
March 7
I am not using all the colors
seen on this palette. Each
morning I got up and ground
just enough paint for the day’s
work. Rembrandt’s colors
would have been freshly
ground for him. Since I am
trying to copy, I want my
materials to be as much the
same as possible. One day I
experimented with five
different yellow ochres.
March 7
I could use a rag with thinned medium to correct small drawing
errors. At this point I am not using any white, only black, red,
and yellow. I could also use the rag to take away the dark
imprematura and expose the lighter under-ground.
March 07
The most frequently asked questions were, “Do you get to
keep it when it is finished?” (Yes.) “What are you going to
do with it?” (Hang it, I hope.) “Is it almost done?” (No.)
March 21
I think the educational seeds put into children’s heads is worth how
exposed I sometimes felt. When art is out of reach or intimidating,
people don’t realize what they are capable of. Seeing someone
trying to make art puts it within reach. The educational process
then becomes so much more than my experience if someone gets
this idea. If I can do it, they can do it ,too.
March 28
Each session the staff created this private area for me in a public
gallery. I had two carpets for drop cloths, my bag of liquids, my
mahl stick, paper towels, mirror and my palette. Each time I left I
went straight to the art supply store for more brushes! I think I
purchased between 20 and 30 new brushes!
March 28
Having the opportunity to really scrutinize the picture with
materials waiting and ready was the best part of this
opportunity. I looked and looked, and then looked some
more.
March 28
At this stage of the painting the dark areas have been mapped out. The dark areas were
initially larger but need to be placed correctly. I can now begin to refine the shadow
shapes along their edges.
Sarah’s copy
Rembrandt’s painting
March 28
The close up shows the amount of detail still to be worked out. In order to avoid
muddying the details I try to keep the light and shadow areas separate. I don’t want
white in the true shadow areas.
Sarah’s copy
Rembrandt’s painting
April 4, 2008
By listening to what the docents were saying to their
groups, I began to understand that some people may have
never heard of Rembrandt. The docents helped me figure
out what to say, especially when groups who did not
realize what I was doing at all came by to watch.
April 4, 2008
Susie’s enthusiasm was contagious! All the curatorial staff and
behind the scenes workers made everything go very smoothly. The
stanchions kept people from wandering into my area and possibly
knocking into the easel or spilling my liquids. People asked
questions about what they could smell.
April 18, 2008
Each time we laid out the rugs we were counting out a certain
number of squares on the floor. We had to be certain that if the
easel tipped over the pieces on the wall were out of range of
damage.
April 18
This is one of the action shots showing me using my mahl stick. It
steadies my hand and keeps it out of wet paint.
Standing in the same room as the picture in the same light, I would mix
and match colors. I was keenly aware of the trust and privilege granted
to be allowed with wet paint in such proximity to the paintings.
April 25
Each week a curatorial staff member escorted the picture (my copy)
and the live paint through the gallery and up the elevator with a
museum cart.
April 25
I get to explain to a student group about how copying the picture
is the closest I can get to a lesson from Rembrandt himself.
Each week I left exhausted from the high concentration and the
constant back and forth. It was very exhilarating and I hope to do it
again!
Why I Tried to Copy Rembrandt
By Sarah Hart
While working with oil based mediums and referring to the book The Artist’s Handbook
of Materials & Techniques I found again a quote by A.P. Laurie that reminded me to
push ahead with my art education by simply painting. Laurie, the well known professor
of chemistry and author from the Royal Academy, is considered a giant on the subject of
old master mediums. He points out, “It is a common mistake…to make up for the want
of manipulative skill on the part of the modern painter, by inventing complex mediums
which the painter of old is supposed to have used.” Picking up the brushes and making
an attempt to copy an old master picture is the best way to learn about how they painted.
My educational background, in college and graduate school, was in the classical methods
of oil painting. Additionally, I spent three months in the Gabinetto des Disegni at the
Uffizi copying old master drawings. The old master drawings, especially the Dutch ones,
taught me that one drawing can be the product of 40-50 hours and even many more. I had
never had the materials, training, opportunity, time, or the idea to move on to the bigger
challenge of copying a master painting until being here in Rochester.
I inquired at the MAG to copy “Portrait of a Young Man in an Armchair” by Rembrandt
van Rijn. I had hoped to be put on their copyist’s waiting list and find out what I had to
do to be granted permission. The opportunity was more than I had imagined; as the
curatorial staff made the history of the painting and its technical analysis immediately
available for me to study in their offices. They then proceeded to craft the old copyists’
rules that had not been used before by any current curatorial staffer. The rules were
untested and incomplete. I agreed to do whatever they needed and be the willing
specimen. To make the most of this unforeseen opportunity I took about two months to
prepare, reading and making the canvas.
The MAG’s library was the other ready resource. It alone is worth the membership at the
MAG and I am always encouraging students to see for themselves. Thousands of
lifetimes of artistic information are on the third floor. There are all kinds of videos for
passive anecdotal learning as well as teaching kits and teaching tools. There are sections
of Rembrandt books and one in particular became the companion piece for the project
called The Painter at Work. This book helped me at every step of my process in such a
detailed manner that I can only summarize how it assisted me. I also appreciated the
many children’s books on the subject so that I could keep the painting in mind as much as
possible.
My objective, of course, was to copy the picture as exactly as possible. I had 10 three
hour sessions in the gallery near the painting. The more time I spent with the picture, the
farther away my goal became. The initial successes of the prepping of the canvas and
lay-in turned to far more challenging struggles. Every week I was buying smaller and
smaller brushes and needing fistfuls of them. For every detail I succeeded in copying, I
noticed two dozen more details. At home in my own studio, I also worked on a still life
that mimicked as many of the same steps I was taking with the copy and applying new
things I had learned.
I believe the countless hours of careful observation and diligent work are what made
Rembrandt so successful. To understand and copy what Rembrandt knew is to spend a
lifetime in careful observation of nature around one. For example, a painter who is
accustomed to spending 60 to one hundred hours on a single portrait achieves a higher
consciousness about what he is seeing and noticing. A portrait has thousands and
thousands of tiny details to observe. I have learned from this process that the ‘magic’
medium lies in the patience and willingness of a painter to take an uncommon amount of
time painting in addition to being able to handle oil paint and its complexities.