Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn(Part 2)

NIGHT WATCH (Night Watch refers to a lookout)

My 1st encountered with Rembrandt paintings was the Night Watch, while exploring to get myself a painter profile for this assignment. It is in this photograph from the museum, I can see some of the visitor looking at the painting. It is a very big painting. Mr Rembrandt painted it in full human size.

When I looked at it, as if the main character is having his foot walking out from the painting or both character walking forward, the effect was stunning.

Night Watch or The Night Watch or The Shooting Company of Franz Banning Cocq (Dutch: De Nachtwacht) is the common name of one of the most famous works by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn.

The painting may be more properly titled The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch. It is on prominent display in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, being the most famous painting in their collection.

Key elements
The painting is renowned for three elements: its colossal size (363 x 437 cm ~ 11ft 10in x 14ft 4in), the effective use of light and shadow, and the perception of motion in what would have been, traditionally, a static military portrait.

This painting was completed in 1642, at the peak of the Dutch Golden Age. It depicts the eponymous company moving out, led by Captain Frans Banning Cocq (dressed in black, with a red sash) and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch (dressed in yellow, with a white sash). With effective use of sunlight and shade, Rembrandt leads the eye to the three most important characters among the crowd, the two gentlemen in the centre (from whom the painting gets its original title), and the small girl in the centre left background. Behind them the company's colours are carried by the ensign, Jan Visscher Cornelissen.

The militiamen were also called Arquebusiers, after the arquebus, a sixteenth-century long-barrelled gun.

Rembrandt has displayed the traditional emblem of the Arquebusiers in the painting in a natural way: the girl in yellow dress in the background is carrying the main symbols. She is a kind of mascot herself: the claws of a dead chicken on her belt represent the clauweniers (arquebusiers); the pistol behind the chicken stands for 'clover'; and, she is holding the militia's goblet. The man in front of her is wearing a helmet with an oak leaf, a traditional motif of the Arquebusiers. The dead chicken is also meant to represent a defeated adversary. The colour yellow is often associated with victory.

Painting's commission
The painting is said to have been commissioned by the Captain and 17 members of his Kloveniers (civic militia guards), and although 18 names appear on a shield in the centre right background, the drummer was hired, and so was allowed in the painting for free. A total of 34 characters appear in the painting. Rembrandt was paid 1,600 guilders for the painting (each person paid one hundred), a large sum at the time. This was one of a series of seven similar paintings of the militiamen (Dutch: nl:Schuttersstuk) commissioned during that time under various artists.

The painting was commissioned to be hung in the banquet hall of the newly built Kloveniersdoelen (Musketeers' Meeting Hall) in Amsterdam. Some have suggested that the occasion for Rembrandt's commission and the series of other commissions given to other artists was the visit of the French queen, Marie de Medici, in 1638. Even though she was escaping at the time from her exile from France by her son Louis XIII her arrival was met with great pageantry.

The composition of the painting was very different for the period. Instead of showing the figures in a neat orderly fashion, where everyone was given the same prominence and space on the canvas, Rembrandt has painted them as a busy group in action.

Around 1715 a shield was painted onto the Night Watch containing the names of 18 people, but only had ever been identified. (So remember if you paint a group portrait: draw a diagram on the back to go with the names of everyone so future generations will know!)




The most stand out character in the painting:



Captain Frans Banning Cocq (dressed in black, with a red sash)
My interpretation –
Black knight defended the war – dressed in black
Red is associated with blood, wounds, sublimation.
In Roman times red symbolized triumph. – Red Sash.

His lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch (dressed in yellow, with a white sash).
Yellow knight brought with him the light of sun – illumination, magnanimity and dissemination
White – purity, pure spiritual aspect, the Chinese’s Yang-Yin – White sash.




The small girl in the centre left background (dressed in yellow)
Yellow - shower with the light of sun

She holds the militia’s goblet (chalice - symbo of the human heart, symbol of containing - power of talismans)
and wears a pistol (protection, watchful) and dead chicken (food, nuture, re-energise) at her waist. The claws of the chicken specifically represent the “Clauweniers,” this regiment. Additional symbols are scattered throughout the painting: a helmet is decorated with the motif of the Arquebusiers, the oak leaf, and the lieutenant’s coat bears three crosses like the Amsterdam coat of arms.

I might not be right totally, if you do have any comments, I would like to learn from you. Thanks.