Artists & Illustrators - UK (2019-10)

3. Light

and shade

COMPOSITION

As JAKE SPICER concludes his series of compositional lessons,

he turns his attentions to Dutch visionary Rembrandt van Rijn

O

ver the past few issues I’ve been exploring the

compositional lessons that we can learn from

looking at other artists’ work, taking examples

from current exhibitions to encourage you to get out and

make studies from the work itself. Making short, focused

drawn studies when you visit galleries will encourage you to

look at artwork through a practical lens, borrowing lessons

from the work that you can apply to your own practice.

In this final instalment I’m going to take the Dutch

draughtsman, painter and printmaker Rembrandt van Rijn

as my focus to coincide with the forthcoming Rembrandt’s

Light exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery this autumn.

Rembrandt died on 4 October 1669, so this year marks

the 350th anniversary of his death and the exhibition,

sitting alongside other major shows of the artist’s work

in 2019, celebrates the output of an artist whose

atmospheric use of light has embedded itself in the

Western cultural imagination.

In this article I’ll look at how Rembrandt used tone

as a compositional device in several of the artworks in

the Dulwich Picture Gallery exhibition; the desaturation of

colours in his paintings, almost entirely devoid of blue with

blushes of earthy warmth, make it easy to view his work

through a tonal lens.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON. ROYAL

COLLECTIONTRUST/© HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II

ABOVE Rembrandt
van Rijn, Philemon
and Baucis, 1658,
oil on panel,
54.5x68.5cm