The three most famous paintings in the world are Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, The Maids of honor by Diego Velázquez, and The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn. My favorite art is the Night Watch, so I will tell you all about it. For realizing why this painting is so famous, we need to know its artist, Rembrandt van Rijn first.
Rembrandt van Rijn was born on 15th July 1606 in Leiden in the Dutch Republic. He was apprenticed to a Leidon history painter. After staying with the painter, Rembrandt started his own art workshop, and then he opened a studio in 1624. This artist began to practice as a professional portraitist with great success and also brought him rich and famous.
One of Rembrandt’s most important achievements is ‘Rembrandt Lighting,’ which is a lighting technique to make a person or thing to pop out of a picture with the help of light. His key light is placed high and to one side at the front. The part of the face where the light is shining glows, and the key is to create a triangle or diamond shape of light underneath the eye where the light is not shining. The triangle should be no longer than the nose or wider than the eye. This technique may be achieved subtly or very dramatically by alerting the subject and lights.
Another one of Rembrandt’s achievements is a famous portrait called the Night Watch in 1642.Normally, the people in a portrait stand in a line, one by one. However, the people in the Night Watch were arranged in different lines, so we can recognize who is the most important person in the drawing immediately. Otherwise, the painter used different lighting for each one. In the front of the picture, Rembrandt painted it with detail and clarity. The further in the back, the softer and hazier things seem to get. He strikes the balance between chaos and unity. The longer you look at it, the more different feeling you have on each face and movement. Motion and looks on the faces achieve with an effect that makes it the greatest painting in Rembrandt’s long career.
After Rembrandt finished this drawing, he lost his job, because many people were mad at him. He fought against money and didn’t follow the request from customers. Some of them complained that they were hidden or in the dark, but Rembrandt followed the art beauty to arrange different people in different light and position, even if he made his customers mad and lost his job. It isn’t easy to finish a wonderful portrait successfully like Rembrandt van Rijn. In his old age he lost his children, wife, and money. He became destitute and died in 1663.
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