New Technology Reveals Hidden Secrets Behind Rembrandt's Masterpiece [52:00]

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0:04 · On the night of the 18th of March 1990, two men dressed as policemen enter the
0:09 · Isabella Gardener Museum in Boston. They tie up the two night guards and walk directly to the Dutch salon where
0:16 · Rembrandt's works hack. Several hours selecting various artworks. A part of our heritage has been stolen
0:23 · from us. It's a barbaric act. Some of the paintings, the thieves cut two Rembrandt paintings
0:29 · and 10 other works out of their frames. The paintings are worth $500 million.
0:35 · It is the biggest art heist in history. The only seascape Rembrandt ever painted.
0:40 · Already a highly sought after painter in his day. The Dutch master still enriches
0:45 · the world's most important collections today. Who was this Barack genius who
0:51 · has enchanted people through the centuries? Rembrandt was not only a miraculous talent as a painter, but he
0:58 · also had a mighty mind. The Dutch artist seems to capture people's souls when he paints. His
1:05 · provocations are extremely modern. When he painted a naked woman, for
1:12 · example, he did not depict her as an object of male desire, but as a victim of sexual abuse. He was one of the most
1:18 · innovative painters who has ever lived. [Music] Today, scientists appearing beneath the
1:25 · rich layers of paint trying to uncover the secret of Rembrandt's magic.
1:32 · He was very conscious of himself as a kind of conjurer, as a magician, a
1:38 · crafts person, but he was also aware that there were certain tricks of the trade. For a time, the master leads a
1:45 · life blessed by light, soon to be overcast by the darkest of shadows.
1:54 · [Music]
2:05 · They hand him the code thief. They hang him.
2:11 · Wonderful. Rembrandt Fanrine has been waiting for this day for weeks. He has received an
2:18 · extraordinary commission. The surgeons of Amsterdam want to be
2:24 · painted by him. It is to be the young artist's first major work. To do this,
2:30 · he has to leave his studio and take part in a postmortem. [Music]
2:37 · Anatomy sessions were quite a public spectacle in the Netherlands at the time. There was music. People brought
2:43 · food and incense because the corpses stank. So, it was really a very, very big show. is a shore.
2:51 · Only male criminals were dissected. This man contaminated by sin. He is now
2:59 · able after his death to do an honorable Nicholas Tulp is Amsterdam's leading surgeon.
3:04 · He and his colleagues pay a lot of money for Rembrandt to portray their work on God's creature man for posterity
3:11 · to better understand the wonders of the but how to portray a random group of surgeons and their lecturer in the right
3:17 · light. A tricky task for the young painter. After all, his clients want to
3:22 · be recognized clearly in the finished oil painting. All this during the spectacular autopsy in which Tulp
3:29 · exposes the flexor muscle of the arm.
3:37 · Rembrandt comes up with an ingenious trick for this. He practically stacks the surgeons on top of each other.
3:45 · However, the surgeons are not the main attraction in his portrayal.
3:52 · What do we see in the center? The dead criminal, the corpse. At its core, the
3:57 · picture is dedicated to him, even if it makes a very brutal impression at first.
4:02 · It shows the executed criminal as a human being capable of suffering
4:08 · and creates one of the most fascinating works in art history. But Rembrandt Fan
4:14 · dares even more. [Music]
4:19 · He has only recently moved to Amsterdam from the small town of Leiden. Now he is using the commission to make a name for
4:26 · himself. He cheekily shapes the belly button of the corpse as an R.
4:36 · The artist's signature also speaks volumes. Like the great masters, he only
4:42 · signs his work with his first name. He simply omits the fan.
4:49 · There's also this sense of ego because you know we know Michelangelo and Raphael and Tishan, but for a Dutch guy
4:56 · to just use his first name is quite unique. But with Rembrandt, you know
5:01 · immediately it's got to be that guy. In a way, it's like a neon sign on your paintings.
5:10 · The young Rembrandt will make Nicholas Tulp immortal with his painting. For the
5:15 · artist, the anatomy session is the starting point for a fabulous career that will lead him to the bright and
5:22 · dark sides of existence. The simple Miller son will revolutionize art.
5:31 · If you go across the range of the human experience, there will be part of
5:36 · Rambrandt's V that will speak to that questions of love, questions of
5:42 · sexuality, questions of power, of violence, of loneliness.
5:50 · Rembrandt Van entered the world in Leiden in6006. His ancestors named themselves after the
5:56 · river that flows through the city and passed his parents' mill towards the sea.
6:05 · [Music] I'm convinced that the mill as an object
6:14 · which reflected the light in a certain way was very important for young Rembrandt. [Music]
6:22 · He must have been attracted by the sun coming through these little windows. And
6:28 · this is of course a fascinating image uh which would would have been in the in
6:33 · the in the eyes and the minds also of the famous painter that later on painted
6:39 · portraits.
6:44 · The writer Ano Blum goes in search of the origins of the magician of light and shadow in his own hometown.
6:53 · The first time the name of Rembrandt is written down on a document is in this
7:00 · book of the Leiden University. And in 1620,
7:06 · Rembrandt Hermoni Leenses who was the son of Herman from Leiden,
7:12 · Studio Literarum was going to be studying the letters, the arts on this
7:18 · university. He was honor 14. He was 14 years old, a little boy with curly hair
7:26 · and he lived with his parents, Aput Bares. I think that he came here to the
7:33 · academy with his father and the recctor sat down and he put for the first time in history
7:39 · on paper. So this is magic for someone who loves Remrant.
7:46 · The education that the craftsman's son received at the oldest university in the Netherlands would also directly
7:52 · influence his later works. If you would have to say who Rembrandt really was,
7:59 · then he was a storyteller, a brilliant storyteller. All these stories from the
8:04 · Greek myth and from the Bible uh Rembrandt painted afterwards in a very
8:10 · special way. Biblical scenes saw the depiction of ancient sagas such as the
8:15 · rape of Pesphanany become gripping stagings of human tragedies.
8:25 · He even invented scenes that are not in the Bible. So, you know, he he could really play
8:32 · with the insightfulness that he had. In keeping with the motto null das sinia
8:40 · since his earliest childhood not a day goes by that Rembrandt does not paint or
8:46 · draw. He devotes himself to his passion. First
8:53 · he opens his own studio in Leiden.
8:59 · [Music] Then he tries his luck in Amsterdam, Holland's commercial metropolis. The
9:05 · young artist's light shines brightly. His exceptional talent is quickly recognized in the city.
9:13 · [Music] God almighty. Can't we have some peace around here?
9:19 · Go. The influential art dealer Henrikenborg
9:25 · promoted the willful painter. Rembrandt, what is it? I must crack on. He arranges
9:31 · his first commissioned portraits, including that of the surgeons around Dr. Tulp.
9:36 · I've brought someone with me. But more importantly, he introduces Rembrandt to his cousin Saskia, who is
9:43 · in town for a visit. Good day.
9:49 · Is it true that light and shadow come alive on your canvas?
9:54 · At least that's what my cousin tells me. Uh, your cousin tells you that.
9:59 · Uh so uh I may Iask we can almost imagine Saskia Islandboy
10:05 · as a fairy tale figure who suddenly entered Rembrandt's life. She was young, she was beautiful, she was rich, she was
10:11 · noble, she was actually more than Rembrandt, the miller's son, could ever have expected from life.
10:17 · Um naturally it's not finished yet, but but perhaps you can understand on
10:22 · principle what I'm aiming for.
10:27 · What is that? That's a secret. [Music]
10:34 · Saskia is 20 years old. She comes from Freezeland from a traditional family of
10:40 · Calvinist solicitors and politicians. She then leaves her Fian homeland and
10:47 · moves to Amsterdam with him. And she really proves to be a stroke of luck for him in every respect. She probably often
10:53 · had his back, if only because as a woman from high society, she had a better knack for dealing with well-healed
11:00 · clients. Will you be long?
11:06 · It's so cold without you in bed. I still need a bed. Not all the island books were
11:12 · enthusiastic about Satka's choice. I think you need some yellow.
11:18 · Hey, you can't get You wait. You can't get me.
11:24 · About 3 months after their first encounter, the two become engaged and are married a year later.
11:33 · Saskia chooses the magician of light and shadow.
11:40 · Rembrandt is also popular among thieves. His works have been stolen from museums more than 81 times.
11:52 · One of his portraits is even called the takeaway Rembrandt. It has already been stolen four times and reappeared each
11:59 · time. The Stockholm art heist kept the world
12:04 · on tent hooks in December 2000. Three men break into the Swedish National
12:10 · Museum with machine guns and steal two Renoirs and a Rembrandt. As a decoy,
12:16 · they set two cars on fire and then escaped by speedboat.
12:24 · In 2005, the art treasures were returned to the museum.
12:30 · Such luck has so far eluded the Isabella Gardener Museum in Boston. The 13
12:35 · masterpieces stolen from there have been missing since 1990. A reward of $10
12:41 · million has been offered for information on their recovery. [Music]
12:48 · Only one real remandant remains in the museum. It shows the artist at the age
12:53 · of 23. One of his extraordinary self-portraits. [Music]
13:00 · Immediately you see these dark dark pupils of the eyes looking out at us.
13:05 · And I think he knows that the way people look at pictures they'll be struck. It
13:11 · will always look like the eyes follow you, but in this case, it's the whole
13:16 · world of light and shadow that's going to follow you. So, it's really very alive. And Rembrandt is a painter of
13:22 · that epiphany in the double sense. Both it's an epiphany of his person, his coming to light, and it's an epiphany
13:29 · because it's the light that does it all. Over 80 self-portraits by Rembrandt have
13:35 · survived. In these Barack selfies, the artist perfects his portrayal of light
13:41 · and poses in a wide variety of costumes from nobleman to beggar. Rembrandt's
13:48 · later self-portraits, they're brutal because they're so realistic. You know,
13:53 · if he's got a big nose because of drinking or if he's got yellow cheeks
13:58 · because his liver doesn't work anymore, or if it warts or whatever, he will paint it. He doesn't do any concession
14:05 · to reality as his philosophy was to really look at nature. So there is not a
14:11 · choice of making himself more beautiful because that means that you have to fantasize about something that isn't
14:18 · there. A stark contrast to his contemporary Petal Rubin's for example who although
14:24 · already over 60 stylizes himself as a youthful elegant artist.
14:30 · But is Rembrandt's honesty perhaps only an effect he plays with?
14:37 · Even if you come so close, you don't really know who Rembrandt is. He comes
14:44 · forward if you look at the painting as self-portrait as a fascinating person, but also he stays a mystery.
14:58 · The works themselves also raise questions. In recent decades, there have been repeated doubts about the
15:04 · authenticity of some of the paintings, such as the man with the gold helmet. Art historians subjected it to intensive
15:11 · analysis. In 1986, they published their sensational result, not an original
15:17 · Rembrandt. Don't apply quite so thickly.
15:25 · The light is here on the outermost edges. The scientists had noticed that the gold
15:30 · did not correspond to Rembrandt's usual painting style. Better. Yeah. The picture was probably painted by one
15:36 · of the more than 50 apprentices Rembrandt taught.
15:42 · In recent years, however, some new authentic Rembrandts have also come to light. The person responsible for that
15:49 · is Yan 6. I talk about him so much and I look at his work so much and every day
15:56 · he sort of bumps into my life. He's everpresent. So in a sort of an academic way or in a
16:03 · philosophical way I'm almost married to Rembrandt. Rembrandt is closely linked to Yansix's
16:09 · family history. One of his ancestors was a friend of the master. The first image I really remember is
16:16 · that little etching of Rembrandt sort of looking like that. And I think I tore it
16:22 · out age eight or nine and hung it in my room and he would always look at me and
16:28 · I from that very moment I loved it. While working for Sbees in London, Yan 6
16:34 · comes across a work by an alleged Rembrandt pupil in a catalog in 2007.
16:40 · Auction price £1,500. His client buys the painting. It later
16:46 · turns out to be a self-portrait by Rembrandt. In 2013, the Getty Museum in
16:52 · Los Angeles buys it for $16 million.
16:58 · [Music] And it is not the only time that Janix
17:03 · demonstrates his sensational instinct for Rembrandt's magic. Half of this biblical scene was painted over in the
17:10 · 19th century. Once again, Six believes he can detect the master's hand.
17:19 · I saw a catalog from a German auction house and I went to Cologne. I saw the
17:24 · real real painting and I saw that parts of it were was overpainted, but the
17:29 · figures in the background really looked original, especially that little boy looking out.
17:37 · And that face is really Rembrandt's face. So at that very moment, I decided
17:43 · for myself, this has to be by Rembrandt.
17:48 · This time, Yan 6 has to raise €1.5 million with an investor to buy the
17:54 · painting at auction. But the real adventure is just
17:59 · beginning. What lies beneath the painted over areas? An X-ray promises more
18:05 · figures painted by Rembrandt's hand. Should one dare to remove the upper layers,
18:12 · you see the X-ray, something is there. And so you ask the restorer, can you just take a little bit of the background
18:18 · away and then first they say, well, really? And then you say, yeah, yeah, try. So the first centimeters go off and
18:25 · the color comes out. And I remember because it was done in England. I remember they called us and they said,
18:31 · "There's color. There's You're right. There's color." And I said, "Continue." And they said, "It's so scary." And I said, "No, you have to do this because
18:38 · it's like Indiana Jones. It's it's like archaeology. It's an adventure."
18:45 · You can see in in the right side, this is halfway the restoration that the red color comes off and that the purple
18:51 · comes out. Also, you can see that the figure behind Christ is now gone. And
18:56 · the three figures that were showing on the X-ray are actually emerging. They're coming out.
19:02 · You can see halfway that the little boy is losing his dress and actually underneath a new body is emerging.
19:12 · I remember when these these naked bucks came out, you know, we were so excited and then we looked at each other and
19:18 · said, "Oh god, you know, somebody thought it was this was a bit strange to to paint the the naked bum of a young
19:26 · kid." But at the same time, it's so it's so natural. It's so real. I mean this
19:31 · this this the innocence of young children and of course Rembrandt understood the Bible so well and this
19:37 · whole story is about the innocence of the world and what is more innocent than a naked child. So in a way it started to
19:43 · make far more sense. Although the young Rembrandt only half completed his painting his pronounced
19:50 · ego and sense of humor are clearly visible.
19:57 · Verment positions himself above Jesus and he's looking at you. He's saying, "I
20:02 · did it. Here I am." So, it shows that he's very eager and he's very
20:08 · self-confident. And I love that because when you're in your 20s, early 20s, you know, when you can start driving a car
20:14 · and when you can do all sorts of grown-up stuff, you're ambitious, you're experimental, and you're always
20:21 · bluffing. You're always a bit too big for life.
20:26 · With this attitude, Rembrandt encounters an environment that offers him everything in abundance. When he sets
20:33 · foot in Amsterdam, the city is in its heyday. It is the golden age of the
20:38 · Netherlands, which becomes the dominant maritime and trading power in the middle of the 17th century.
20:46 · In Amsterdam, in particular, the riches of the world were quite literally piled up. Gold and ivory from Africa, tobacco
20:53 · and furs from North America, sugar and cocoa from South America, and pepper and nutmeg from Asia.
21:00 · The population of Amsterdam grows from 40,000 to 210,000 during Rembrandt's
21:06 · lifetime. Living quarters are created at lightning speed. The rich merchants
21:11 · invest in real estate. This is how the canal belt comes into being. The city
21:16 · literally bursts at the seams several times. [Music]
21:24 · Amsterdam is booming. Ordinary workers here earn twice as much in the mid- 17th
21:30 · century compared to those in Cologne, for example. Rembrandt is a child of his time, living
21:36 · it up with a paraw for extravagance. He was particularly fond of exotic objects
21:42 · from far away countries. Interestingly, Rembrandt's adult life
21:47 · coincides exactly with the height of the golden age. If there was ever an artist who was born at the right time in the
21:53 · right country, it was Rembrandt.
22:06 · Painters enjoy a high reputation in the city and Rembrandt relishes his growing
22:11 · popularity. The melting pot of Amsterdam provides him with new motifs every day.
22:17 · My name is Rembrandt. An estimated 5 million paintings were
22:23 · produced in the 17th century. And it's unique that at that time it
22:29 · wasn't just a small avanguard, an elite that was interested in contemporary art as is the case today, but broad sections
22:36 · of the population.
22:46 · Foreign visitors were always surprised that one could buy pictures at the market stalls in the Netherlands and the carpenters and butchers had pictures
22:53 · hanging at home. At that time, works of art were often
23:00 · even accepted as currency in Amsterdam. And in the pulsating world metropolis,
23:06 · the name Rembrandt soon ranks right at the top.
23:11 · Keep still, but I am holding still. Yes, too.
23:17 · Merchants like Martin Solmans, who had amassed fabulous wealth through trade, had themselves immortalized by the
23:23 · artist more and more often. For no one painted people like Rembrandt.
23:30 · With almost every Rembrandt portrait, you see something that is
23:35 · uncompromising. Sometimes you get a sense that it was production and the bills had to be paid, but almost always
23:41 · you get a sense that there is a new invention to be brought out. And
23:46 · Rembrandt is giving himself a challenge because that is how he sees art, at least the art that he makes
23:55 · by incorporating accessories. For example, Rembrandt also tells stories in his portraits and he makes up small
24:02 · actions that bring movement into the picture. A masterly trick. In this way,
24:08 · static poses become a lively snapshot that he captures on canvas.
24:18 · Martin Solmans is to marry Opian Copit, the wealthy daughter of a gunpowder merchant. The wedding painting of the
24:25 · two is to be more impressive than anything that has been done before. Until now, a life-siz painting was
24:32 · reserved for royalty. Many of his works have their explanation
24:40 · in his singular devotion to be being and performing the role of a great artist.
24:47 · Even a king couldn't get an audience with him and had to wait until he was ready and had finished what he was
24:53 · working on. In 2016, the wedding portraits of Martin
24:58 · and Opion become a sensation. After 400 years in private hands, they
25:04 · are offered on the market. France and Holland join forces and acquire the duo
25:09 · for 160 million. Now you can admire Martin and Orpion, sometimes in the
25:16 · Paris Lu and sometimes in Amsterdam's Reichkes Museum. The couple moves every
25:21 · 5 years.
25:26 · Petria Noble, senior conservator at the Reichkes Museum, was asked to assess the
25:32 · condition of the paintings before the purchase in the private chambers of the Rothschild family. The paintings hung in
25:40 · a bedroom with open doors onto the garden. There was a busy street not far away, you know, from the garden. So I
25:46 · think over the years there was actually a sort of a layer of sort of grimy soot that had accumulated on top of the
25:52 · paintings. Together with her team, Petri Noble freed the couple from centuries of
25:58 · yellowing, repaired damage, and restored them to their original appearance. [Music]
26:09 · It is precisely in the tiniest details that Rembrandt's genius and also his
26:14 · inventiveness is revealed. What is so stunning is that the general impression, you know, from a distance is
26:21 · that this is a real lace collar. I mean, it really gives you the impression that it is that he depicted that in a lot of
26:26 · detail, but in fact, when you get up close, it's nothing more than just little dabs and licks of black paint on
26:34 · top of this white layer. Contrary to what one would expect,
26:39 · Rembrandt did not paint white lace on a black background, but the other way round. He was a master of illusion who
26:46 · knew all the tricks and invented new ones.
26:53 · But he was unrivaled in capturing the essence of those he portrayed.
26:58 · [Music] The amazing thing is that you somehow
27:04 · believe that you're actually looking at the person. With other painters, they're often just lifeless mannequins.
27:12 · But with Rembrandt, you think you know the character of the person. Sometimes you have the feeling that they're still
27:18 · alive, that they could walk through the doorway at any moment. You can't really explain it. It remains somewhat
27:25 · mysterious. That person is really gazing and you
27:32 · really have a sense that something is going on because you get this interaction. He sort of hooks you in and
27:40 · he takes you along and that's quite rare for an artist.
27:47 · He portrays fear. He reveals melancholy. He actually lays bare everything known
27:52 · to human existence. In the Reichkes Museum, just a few
27:58 · meters away from Martin and Opion, is Petria Noble's new workplace. She is in
28:04 · charge of Operation Nightw Watch. Under this name, one of the most comprehensive
28:09 · restoration projects in art history began in July 2019.
28:14 · Rembrandt's monumental painting, his most famous work, the night watch, is
28:19 · being examined with unprecedented detail.
28:26 · The sheer size of the painting has meant an enormous amount of challenges
28:32 · involved in researching the painting, but also um just in simple things like
28:38 · how do you go about you know digital photography of such a large painting? How are you going to capture all those
28:43 · images? Ultra high resolution scans provide the basis for the restoration of Rembrandt's
28:50 · masterpiece, which will take years. It's the national painting, you could
28:56 · say. It's it's like it's in in the Reichkes Museum. It's it's hanging like
29:01 · the the top uh piece on an altar. It's like the temple of art. And the best
29:07 · piece in it is the night watch.
29:19 · I don't know if that is his best painting, but it doesn't really matter because it's clearly the greatest
29:25 · endeavor. It was really showing this is what I am capable of. And it's a pretty awesome big picture.
29:33 · the guard of Amsterdam who would otherwise be sitting kind of uh in a in
29:38 · a static portrait are suddenly coming up to us. The picture has this sense of
29:45 · momentariness. You can hear the gunfire. You can hear
29:50 · the drum beats. You can almost smell the guns. This image is highly sensorial.
29:58 · The illustrious group is typical of Rembrandt's time. a marksman's guild
30:03 · that provides security in Amsterdam as a vigilante group. The giant of art
30:09 · immortalized himself once again in this monumental work.
30:17 · [Music] Petria Noble is still impressed by Rembrandt's painting technique even
30:24 · after many years. He's using different kinds of tricks
30:31 · that any other artist does. You have two details of the painting right next to one another. Of course, the lieutenant
30:38 · built up in this really thick impasto in multiple layers. And uh when you get
30:43 · even closer, you can sort of see, you know, that he's really dorbed that paint
30:48 · on. I mean, under a microscope, it almost
30:53 · looks like ice cream. [Music] And right next to it, you have this
31:00 · really summery execution of the dog. The dog sort of is meant to kind of
31:07 · blend away in the background where the lieutenant is meant to come forward. That's how he builds the composition and
31:14 · creates that suggestion of depth in the painting. Few people know that the night watch was
31:19 · originally much larger when it was transferred to Amsterdam City Hall in 1715.
31:25 · Something happened that would be unimaginable today. It doesn't fit through the doors. So, the mayor has the
31:32 · work trimmed on all four sides. No one knows what these missing parts look
31:38 · like, but at least a copy of Rembrandt's masterpiece exists, made by the painter Garrett Lundons in 1650. It is the basis
31:46 · for a spectacular project.
31:54 · There are several things that are present in the Londons but missing in the night watch. Apparent difference is
32:02 · that on the night watch this figure here wearing the helmet has been cut off
32:07 · whereas in the Londons we see his arm back here. And in fact there are two
32:12 · missing figures. And if you look closely, there's even a little boy down here looking over the wall.
32:18 · The missing sections will be reconstructed with the help of deep learning algorithms. To do this, the
32:24 · technology is first fed hundreds of details from both images. I use this
32:30 · alignment between the London's and the Nightw Watch um to basically send the neural network
32:37 · to art school. So what you're seeing here in these examples is a little tile from the Londons and then the same tile
32:45 · from the Nightw Watch. And so this is basically a quiz that we're giving the neural network. We say, "All right,
32:52 · paint this like Rembrandt would paint it." Um, and this is its best guess.
32:59 · After hundreds of thousands of cycles, the missing parts of Rembrandt's Nightw Watch are then calculated from the data.
33:06 · And this is the result.
33:13 · So in here in the middle you see the nightw watch and then along the edges
33:19 · you can see the extension from the neural reconstruction.
33:30 · In this way, the museum creates a unique reconstruction of the night watch, which gives an idea of how Rembrandt probably
33:37 · really planned his work [Music]
33:43 · and it enables new insights, especially with regard to the positioning of the figures.
33:49 · [Music] open this strip of about 60 cm from the left
33:57 · side has a huge impact on the original composition. We get a greater sense of how Rembrandt use you know perspective
34:03 · in the painting. Um I mean the fact that we now have this the figure is holding
34:08 · on to this railing. I mean certainly you know lead you much more into the
34:14 · composition and there's much more of a sense that the figures are now not in the center of the painting but actually
34:19 · offc center. Since the additions were made by computer and not by Rembrandt's hand in
34:25 · the future the night watch will be displayed in the familiar form that enchants millions of visitors to the
34:31 · Reichkes Museum every year. [Music]
34:41 · When Rembrandt receives the commission for the Night Watch, he is 34 years old.
34:46 · He is at the height of his creative powers. Amsterdam's elite are at his feet. His marriage to Saskia has granted
34:53 · him a life of wealth. He acquires a stately home which he fills with art
34:58 · from all over Europe and his collection of historical and exotic exhibits.
35:09 · [Music] He captures this flight of fancy in a
35:15 · self-portrait. It shows him and Saskia as a couple who enjoy life.
35:21 · [Music] Rembrandt was sometimes criticized for
35:26 · his extravagance. For example, his wife Saska's relatives accused him of throwing money out of the window with
35:32 · both hands. Interestingly, he didn't deny this at all. He only said, "Yes, we can afford
35:38 · it because we've been so richly blessed by God Almighty with money and goods."
35:46 · Saskia's diary of 40,000 gilders was used up only a few years after the
35:51 · wedding. [Music]
35:57 · Rembrandt knew better than anyone, where there is light, there must be darkness.
36:06 · And the darkness that fell over his imposing house was long and gloomy.
36:15 · Saskia gave birth to three children. All three died after a few days or weeks.
36:21 · Then finally one son, Titos, survives.
36:29 · Look what papa's doing. Rembrandt, Tito scolds you. You should paint faster.
36:35 · Papa needs a bit of quiet. Their happiness is short-lived. Saskia
36:41 · dies at the age of only 30 when Tetus is one year old.
36:48 · The four pregnancies had taken their toll on her, and tuberculosis was most likely her death sentence.
37:00 · Saskia's death is the turning point in Rembrandt's life. His masterpiece, The
37:05 · Night Watch, is almost finished. He does not yet suspect it, but his glory days
37:11 · are over forever. [Music]
37:27 · Saskuke's death was a great shock to him. This is reflected on the one hand in the moving drawings he made of her in
37:33 · the last phase of her life, but also in the fact that he immediately fell into a deep creative crisis afterwards and
37:40 · painted almost nothing for 10 years. Stephanie Book and her colleagues at the
37:46 · copper plate etching museum in Dresdon are studying Saskia nearly 400 years after her death. Just as he was able to
37:54 · create a monumental painting like the night watch, Rembrandt also captured private details with great sensitivity.
38:02 · We are sitting in front of one of the most beautiful drawings by Rembrandt ever. At least it is one of the most
38:08 · beautiful for me. This is his wife Saskia. A very intimate format.
38:14 · His way of portraying life is so captivating. The way the pupil is positioned, the
38:20 · relationship between the nose and the corner of the mouth. These are just tiny dots, tiny little strokes.
38:30 · A spot of light on Saskia's head has aroused the interest of the researchers.
38:35 · Did Rembrandt subsequently correct the spontaneous sketch? A technical analysis might shed light on
38:42 · the matter. The valuable artwork is irradiated with different light wavelengths that do not damage the
38:49 · unique etching. [Music]
39:02 · In the infrared image, we could clearly see with very long wave light that this
39:07 · brightness around the face was in fact applied with a watery chalk so that he
39:12 · did not make a correction but added an additional source of light afterwards.
39:18 · This causes Saskia to naturally shine out of the picture more strongly.
39:25 · And it was obviously important for him to set this light again in this way.
39:33 · When it comes to lighting design, Rembrandt was the absolute master. Even today, camera technicians use his
39:40 · methods to set the scene for faces. As seen here in the interview with art historian Francisco Gotwalt and David
39:47 · Dvit, chief creator of the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam.
39:52 · [Music] When you look at his character studies
39:58 · and depictions of heads, it's often noticeable that the treatment of light
40:03 · or how light is depicted or how a head is illuminated
40:08 · seems unusual. [Music]
40:14 · Gotfeld and Vit wanted to find out how Rembrandt succeeded in creating atmosphere through the use of light.
40:21 · Even when he had to carve the motif into the metal plate with a needle, he mastered the play of light like no one
40:27 · else. For example, in this etching, the scientists discover something
40:33 · astonishing in connection with this piece. Rembrandt reveals the secret of how he influenced the light in his
40:39 · studio. with a fabric construction over the window.
40:49 · The cloth increases the diffusion of light in the room, making it softer and dispersed.
40:56 · But you can also see that these windows are blocked at the bottom. The aim is to have light from above, not only from the
41:03 · window, but also from above. In this way, the master creates a light
41:10 · that gently envelops his models. He uses light not only to create space,
41:18 · but also saw the potential of using light alone to create or bring out
41:23 · emotional states more intensely.
41:30 · After Saskia's death, Rembrandt withdrew from the world. His stubbornness and
41:35 · undiplomatic nature meant that he hardly received any more commissions in the following years. Court records tell of
41:42 · ever greater financial problems. He spends more time in nature. Now
41:49 · the etchings when you look at them the first time, you do think that a lot of it is just dark scribble. Sometimes
41:55 · there's nothing but darkness. And if you allow yourself to look just a little bit longer, all of a sudden, bam, you see
42:02 · it's not all dark. [Music]
42:08 · There are an incredible number of things to discover in this landscape. On the one hand, these windmills that we can
42:15 · recognize, of course, but also lots of people. We have a farmer and a farmer's
42:20 · wife. Then we have a draftsman on the horizon on the right.
42:27 · And we have a very mysterious pair in the foreground, perhaps lovers.
42:35 · Rembrandt's contemplation of nature has always been directed towards the human and even the very human.
42:46 · His cander shocks [Music]
42:52 · his nudes vex his contemporaries. [Music]
42:59 · The print is famous for the fact that it was also criticized for being so candid when people in the academy thought that
43:05 · one had to follow norms and rules. And here, for example, you can see the imprint that garters make and that was
43:12 · simply not considered appropriate for a nude. This is a corporality that simply
43:18 · reminds us that bodies are like that. Whether that's brutally honest is something you have to think about
43:24 · because who is being coseted when we look in the mirror in the morning? We're not coseted either. So it's a detail
43:31 · that brings the vitality of life itself into the etchings. [Music]
43:38 · Rembrandt has not lost his sense of humor even as a widowerower, nor has he lost his knack for telling stories.
43:47 · [Music] At the back in the distance, you can see
43:53 · a reaper cutting the grain. This means that we as viewers know that of course this burst of passion will probably be
44:00 · over quickly when they are discovered. The artistic obscenities fit in with the
44:07 · sllovenly life Rembrandt leads in the eyes of Amsterdam society. For years, he had a love affair with a nurse Ha who
44:14 · raised his son Titos and he made promises of marriage to her. Imagine
44:22 · that this is all water here. You're standing in water. In water.
44:29 · Splash. Splash. Splash. When he turns to the prettier and younger maid, Henrika, who also
44:35 · frequently models for him, things come to a head. [Music]
44:46 · Oh, Rembrandt, the other side, too.
44:52 · The Jeda sues Rembrandt and wins alimony in court. He takes revenge and has her
44:59 · locked away for 5 years in a women's penitentiary. [Music]
45:08 · Ketch is the dark chapter in Rembrandt's life. If we look at his behavior today,
45:14 · even if we take into account the standards of his time, we have to conclude that the same person who
45:19 · created such tremendously sensitive works of art could be harsh and unforgiving in his personal life.
45:28 · But Hrik stays with Rembrandt. She becomes the second important woman at his side. Together they have another
45:35 · daughter, Cornelia.
45:41 · Henrikish. Henrikishtoffles was a very simple woman who couldn't even read and write properly. But she must have been very
45:48 · astute because when Rembrandt had to declare bankruptcy in 1656,
45:53 · Henrikia founded an art trading company and took Rembrandt on as an employee so
45:58 · that he could concentrate entirely on his art. And that is how his legendary late work came about.
46:07 · The late Rembrandt artworks break with the conventions of the time. He scales everything down to the essential,
46:13 · radical and modern from today's point of view.
46:20 · Rem works very intensively with individual blobs of color and sometimes
46:26 · he simply makes use of our brain's ability to complete something that's not even there. He even emits some things
46:33 · and we still know that it's a hand that is the crease of an arm because we complete the picture ourselves. So he's
46:40 · concerned with showing a state of mind or showing a state of being and somehow
46:45 · conveying that to us. That's ultimately something that modern painting especially impressionism picks up on
46:51 · later. The art critics of his time despised this way of painting. But Rembrandt's
46:58 · way of painting points far into the future.
47:06 · Can artificial intelligence copy the genius? An advertising agency commissioned computer scientists to
47:12 · teach algorithms to paint like Rembrandt? To do this, they had their computers analyze all 340 of Rembrandt's
47:20 · paintings. It is true that Rembrandt is kind of the pop star of Dutch arts and culture and
47:27 · the Dutch masters and we could have gone with Van Gogh maybe as well. But the the important thing with Rembrandt is
47:32 · there's a lot of data available. The AI drew its conclusions from
47:39 · millions of data. What does a Rembrandt nose look like? How far away are the
47:44 · cheekbones from the eyes? The algorithms analyzed the facial parts and then
47:49 · created their own work. [Music]
47:57 · The biggest challenge remained how to print Rembrandt's voluminous color application on a canvas, sometimes with
48:04 · centime thick layers of paint. The technicians mastered this hurdle as well
48:09 · and developed their own printing process.
48:21 · The result was presented to the public and to an extremely skeptical art scene as the next Rembrandt.
48:30 · [Music]
48:36 · One reaction was quite outspoken which was I would be the antichrist of the art
48:42 · world. And there's a very famous Rembrandt expert who actually came and
48:47 · who had his uh magnifying glass and he looked at the painting and he said this
48:53 · is prostitution of Rembrandt. Do we want as humans compete with AI
49:00 · when it comes to art or is that is that meant for humans and is this just to
49:06 · help create new and more beautiful things? And I think it's the latter.
49:14 · What would the master himself have thought? If Rembrandt were to see the recreated
49:20 · Rembrandt today, he would probably grab his brush and fix it.
49:27 · Rimbrandt survives his son Titos and Henrika, the woman who stood by him even without a marriage certificate. Both
49:34 · died of the plague which raided twice in Amsterdam between 1660 and 1670.
49:40 · In the end, he lives a secluded and lonely life with only his daughter Cornelia looking in on him from time to
49:47 · time. [Music]
49:53 · His contemporaries did not know what to make of his painting style.
49:59 · [Music] There is a strong sense that Rembrandt
50:04 · himself knew that he was painting in order to be timeless in not a
50:11 · metaphysical sense but like in a historical sense timeless in this sense that his work will always look fresh
50:20 · deep into the future. But I do think that the more and more we start to understand more about ourselves, about
50:26 · our own ego and about our own position in life and how we treat reality, we
50:32 · start to understand more and more about Rembrandt. Uh I think he was just light
50:37 · years ahead in observing. But still, even if you know him so well,
50:43 · if you come so close, he stays a mystery.
50:48 · Heat. [Music]
51:04 · Heat. [Music]
51:23 · [Music]
51:48 · [Music]

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