1653, Rembrandt van Rijn, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: Among the most celebrated works of art at The Met, this painting conveys Rembrandt's meditation on the meaning of fame. The richly clad Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) rests his hand pensively on a bust of Homer, the epic poet who had attained literary immortality with his Iliad and Odyssey centuries before. Aristotle wears a gold medallion with a portrait of his powerful pupil, Alexander the Great-perhaps the philosopher is weighing his own worldly success against Homer's timeless achievement. Although the work has come to be considered quintessentially Dutch, it was painted for a Sicilian patron at a moment when Rembrandt's signature style, with its dark palette and almost sculptural buildup of paint, was beginning to fall out of fashion in Amsterdam.
1653, Rembrandt van Rijn, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: Among the most celebrated works of art at The Met, this painting conveys Rembrandt's meditation on the meaning of fame. The richly clad Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) rests his hand pensively on a bust of Homer, the epic poet who had attained literary immortality with his Iliad and Odyssey centuries before. Aristotle wears a gold medallion with a portrait of his powerful pupil, Alexander the Great-perhaps the philosopher is weighing his own worldly success against Homer's timeless achievement. Although the work has come to be considered quintessentially Dutch, it was painted for a Sicilian patron at a moment when Rembrandt's signature style, with its dark palette and almost sculptural buildup of paint, was beginning to fall out of fashion in Amsterdam.