Rembrandt in the National Gallery

I got to London this afternoon, and am boldly commencing with the not-for-school portion of my trip, figuring that I can't get a reader's card at the British Library over the weekend. I can do that when I get back from Oxford at the end of the week, so the next two days are just for tourist purposes.

In that spirit I went to Trafalgar Square as soon as I had let off my luggage at my hostel (which is is a little farther out of the city than I would like, but in a very pretty suburb area called Belsize Park). I went to the crypt cafe under st. Martin in the Fields, my all-time favorite place to eat in London, although I have to say the savory food let me down a bit (but the desert was excellent). From there I went to the National Gallery, pushing my way through a crowd gathered in the square to protest the occupation of Palestine--sometimes it feels as if I never left Columbia.

I had come to the National gallery mostly because it is one of the places that I didn't make it to in 2003 when I was here before, and I was not feeling very diverted by anything I saw (too many renaissance paintings, which don't seem to pack much punch now that I have actually been to Italy) until I got to the Rembrandt room, and then I was very glad I came. Not only do I have some context to appreciate Rembrandt because he is one of the Art Hum artists, but because he was so important in On Beauty (which I just finished). I can see the reason he was so important: in a book with so many ugly feelings portrayed, that is yet still about beauty, Rembrandt is a perfect foil. He is also about beauty, even when he pulls it from as ugly a source as the creases in an old man's face (self portrait painted in 1669--the year he died). It's cliche to say this, but he has the most amazing way with light. The illumination in the Gallery switches on and off every few minutes (presumably to extend the life of the paintings, not my eyesight) and when it comes on the pictures change. Their highlights glow.

I saw the painting of Hendrickje, Rembrandt's mistress, that Z. Smith ended the book with a description of, but the one I loved best is the portrait Rembrandt painted of her the same year (1654). Its very sensual--despite the fact that she is wrapped in fur, you can see a lot of her skin, and both skin and fur are painted with wonderful, fuzzy edges so they seem to spring off the canvas. The painting's blurb speaks of the "affection with which she is represented," and although that sounds like a critical affectation, you can really see it. It's painted as if he wanted to touch her, and it makes you want to, too. He was almost 50 when he painted it, and when they met she was a servant in his household--I hope she like him as well as he did her and the power was not all on one side.