Rembrandt | Portrait drawing

• "Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses or kindnesses".

• "I envy the poet. He is encouraged toward drunkenness and wallows with nubile wenches while the painter must endure wretchedness and pain for his art".

Rembrandt | Portraits / Self-Portraits

Because of his empathy for the human condition, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn has been called "one of the great prophets of civilization".

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter and etcher.

He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history.

His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age, when Dutch Golden Age painting, although in many ways antithetical to the Baroque style that dominated Europe, was extremely prolific and innovative.

Rembrandt: "Senza l'atmosfera un dipinto non è nulla"

• "Try to put well in practice what you already know; and in so doing, you will in good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about. Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know".

• "Prova a mettere bene in pratica quello che già sai; così facendo sarai sempre in tempo, e scoprirai le cose nascoste che ora stai cercando. Metti in pratica quello che sai, e ciò ti aiuterà a rendere chiaro ciò che ora non conosci".

Rembrandt | La teoria del difetto di vista

In un articolo pubblicato il 16 settembre 2004 sul New England Journal of Medicine, Margaret S. Livingstone, docente di neurobiologia della facoltà di medicina dell'Università di Harvard, suggerisce che Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669), i cui occhi sembrano avere avuto un difetto nell'allineamento della vista, soffrisse di "perdita di stereopsi", una condizione in cui risulta difficile o impossibile percepire correttamente la profondità.

La studiosa è giunta a questa conclusione osservando 36 autoritratti dell'artista.

Dato che egli non possedeva una normale visione binoculare, il suo cervello automaticamente sceglieva di utilizzare un solo occhio per l'osservazione.

Antonietta Brandeis | Venice painting

Antonietta Brandeis (1848-1926), was a Czech-born Italian landscape, genre and portrait painter, as well as a painter of religious subjects for altarpieces.

Early Life and Initial Training

She was born on January 13, 1848, in Miskovice (near Kutná Hora) in Eastern Europe. The first bibliographical indication of Antonietta Brandeis dates from her teens, when she is mentioned as a pupil of the Czech artist Karel Javurek of Prague. After the death of Brandeis' father, her mother, Giuseppina Dravhozvall, married the Venetian Giovanni Nobile Scaramella; shortly afterward the family apparently moved to Venice.