cRembrandt van Rijn

1635-37

Oil on canvas, 165 cm x 203 cm

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

The Danae is ascribed to 1636, and the date is fairly legible, though it seems early for a work of such vigour. What the subject is still remains uncertain, and on this controverted question there is a good note in the Catalogue of the Hermitage. For the lover of art it is quite sufficient to see that the picture represents a comely woman ripe for love and expectant of her mate. Saskia probably served as model, and the forms of the nude are more delicate than is often the case with the master. As a study in light- and-shade and colour the piece is almost overpowering in its splendour. There is considerable variety in the carnations, the coral reds on cheek and knee and fingertips give life to the broad scheme of golden lights and halftones and reflexes that play over the rounded torso and limbs. These warm hues are thrown up by the whites and cool shadows of the bed-linen, over which the light plays in a magical fashion to which no words can do justice. It is a veritable apotheosis of bed-clothes ; and the possibilities of beauty in white linen under light-and-shade, and of luxurious softness in plume pillows, have never before and never since been so seen and shown. This pure and brilliant fountain of light and colour springs from the midst of warm olive-greens through which there runs a note of crimson. The bed-hangings are green, the coverlet a deep orange red, the carpet in front of the bed a light greeny blue, and the fantastic carving of the bed-stead golden with deep amber shades. The cover of the small table to the right is embroidered with gold on crimson and the colour is carried through by the cherry- red bows upon the bracelets to the cap of the old woman which is a subdued sanguine hue. Not the least beautiful passage of colour is the grey wall seen through the opening in the bed curtains.

Taken in itself the ' Danae ' is a picture absolutely of the first order, representing the art of painting at its zenith ; yet when we compare the figure that gives the piece its name and character with a later effort in the nude of about twenty years after, we see that the art of Rembrandt could rise, as it were, above itself, and carry us to a height of pictorial achievement from which even the Danae looks immature. The reference is to the worldfamous Bathsheba of the Louvre of 1654. G. Baldwin Brown

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