Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
A professor once warned me to reserve final judgement on a painting until I got to see it in person. Slides and book reproductions distort our perception of color and scale. I believe it was Berenson who once admonished his students to make any judgments from color reproductions because they always lie.
I was very surprised by the size of this painting, having seen numerous reproductions over the years I was expecting a much smaller canvas. Also in commercial reproductions the image is often cropped closer to the figure.
Man in Armour
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669)
oil on canvas
"With great power and poignancy, Rembrandt has depicted a young man literally weighed down with heavy armour and weapons, and appearing to have profound thoughts of battles ahead. Significantly, this soldier's armour, circular shield and lance are all of a style essentially obsolete by the time the painting was made. This suggests that he is to be understood as a figure from the past. His helmet, evoking antiquity, is an invention by the artist, mixing the rear neck-guard of a contemporary cavalry helmet with a brow plate and crest in a style then considered to be characteristically classical.
Who the man in the painting is has been a matter of continuing debate.
Classical heroes, such as Achilles, or gods, such as Mars and Apollo, have been proposed, while warrior goddesses such as Bellona and Pallas Athene (the Roman Minerva) have also been suggested by virtue of the subject's youthful features and prominent pearl earring. The latter claim is supported by the presence of an owl – a symbol sacred to Athene – embossed in the armour's brow plate. However the probable subject of the painting is actually the successful Macedonian king Alexander the Great. He was famed for his intellect, youth and military prowess and, like many soldiers in classical antiquity, revered Athene."
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
A professor once warned me to reserve final judgement on a painting until I got to see it in person. Slides and book reproductions distort our perception of color and scale. I believe it was Berenson who once admonished his students to make any judgments from color reproductions because they always lie.
I was very surprised by the size of this painting, having seen numerous reproductions over the years I was expecting a much smaller canvas. Also in commercial reproductions the image is often cropped closer to the figure.
Man in Armour
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669)
oil on canvas
"With great power and poignancy, Rembrandt has depicted a young man literally weighed down with heavy armour and weapons, and appearing to have profound thoughts of battles ahead. Significantly, this soldier's armour, circular shield and lance are all of a style essentially obsolete by the time the painting was made. This suggests that he is to be understood as a figure from the past. His helmet, evoking antiquity, is an invention by the artist, mixing the rear neck-guard of a contemporary cavalry helmet with a brow plate and crest in a style then considered to be characteristically classical.
Who the man in the painting is has been a matter of continuing debate.
Classical heroes, such as Achilles, or gods, such as Mars and Apollo, have been proposed, while warrior goddesses such as Bellona and Pallas Athene (the Roman Minerva) have also been suggested by virtue of the subject's youthful features and prominent pearl earring. The latter claim is supported by the presence of an owl – a symbol sacred to Athene – embossed in the armour's brow plate. However the probable subject of the painting is actually the successful Macedonian king Alexander the Great. He was famed for his intellect, youth and military prowess and, like many soldiers in classical antiquity, revered Athene."