Gatherings
REMBRANDTVAN RIJN
Dutch painter draftsman,
printmaker and one of the
greatest and most influential
masters of Western Art. He
is also the artist from whom
we can learn most about
handling pen and ink. This
vivid portrait of his wife
captures our attention. It
took only minutes to make
and yet it lives for centuries.
A need produced the thicker
lines of the nurse, while a quill
made the finer lines of Saskia.
Washes of shadow behind
her were laid with a brush.
Saskia Lying in
Bed and a Nurse
1638
9 x 61 / 2 in (227 x 164 mm)
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
A
LL DRAWINGS TELL STORIES, but drawings of gathered people tell them most directly.
We read tensions and exchanges between people, and instantly engage with the
action of the scene. Storytelling and people-watching are obsessive human activities.
Blockbuster movies, television documentaries, soap operas, paintings depicting scenes
from history, daily newspapers, comics, and novels—our staple cultural diet—are
driven by a fascination with shared experience and the detail of what happens in other
people's lives.
Here, Rembrandt's bored and frustrated wife, Saskia, stares out from her gloomy
sickbed. Her all-too-clear expression shows annoyance and irritation with her
husband, presumably while he is making this drawing. He in turn scorches the paper
with his view and a certain speed of seeing all. Later in their lives, Saskia died after
childbirth, and so. in spite of how it may seem, this is not the portrait of an old
woman. Seeing through Rembrandt's eyes, we, too, are implicated in this marital
exchange made over the head of the anonymous nurse.
The spaces between people and the positions they occupy on a page are vital
to our understanding of the psychology or emotion of an event. As artists, we can
heighten or subdue drama with subtleties of exaggeration or caricature. We can direct
the viewer's attention in a scene by the format of its composition, the speed and
density of its lines, and its illumination. We can also use clothes, furniture, and other
props to add layers of meaning and attitude.
Just as there are three parts to a traditional landscape drawing—the foreground,
middle, and distance—so drawings of gathered people can be loosely arranged in three
types. First, the direct exchange (as shown here) where one or more characters hold eye
contact with, and therefore seem to see, the viewer. Second, the viewer is not directly
engaged and as a natural voyeur can feel invisible while watching the scene, even up
close. Third, a crowd tells the story from a distance; there are no longer individuals but
one significant group or mass action. Drawings selected for this chapter explore these
ranges of proximity in the delivery of narrative. With a pocket full of disposable pens
and a travel journal, we also go out and draw the expressions of gathered people, finding
corners in crowded places to inscribe their action and energy onto the page.
