This the skeleton of Rembrandt. While reading about him and viewing some of his work I discovered that his life was filled with loss and sorrow, as well as triumphs and joys. He experienced much of his artistic inspiration from the stories of the bible although he is best known for his portraits.
I found his work warm and sensitive, filled with emotion.
As I learn first about DaVinci , then Michelangelo and now Rembrandt I feeling richer and richer by the day. I am finding that my view of art is changing as well as my creative experience evolving. I liken it to the first time I felt the endorphins rise in my brain while exercise. My endorphins are rising and with each day that passes I feel a stillness and a hunger for this process that I have committed myself to.
Getting down to the nuts and bolts of my inspired work influenced by Rembrandt.
First of all I wanted to stay primarily on the warm side of the spectrum.
my pallet consisted of titanium white, azo yellow medium, cadmium yellow hue, azo yellow deep,cadmium red hue, rose quinacridone, azo red deep, alizarine crimson, yellow ochre, terre vehte, colbalt blue hue, and french ultra marijn.
When it came to decide what I was to paint, of course a portrait was tempting, I love faces. But I decided to go to the bible for my inspiration as did Rembrandt.
My mother gave me a bible for my fiftieth birthday, yikes fifty, that is hard for me still to comprehend. I don't feel fifty (something).
I went to the old testament and looked through the stories and found one that spoke to me.
The Book of Ruth. as the story goes, Naomi, her husband and their two sons moved to neighboring Moab to escape famine in Israel. Naomi's husband died there and her sons married Moabite women. In time, both her sons also died, leaving Naomi destitute and and alone, far from her relatives in Israel. Naomi decided to return to Israel. She went to her daughter-in-laws and told them to back to their families, there they would find security and safety and they were still young enough to remarry and have children.
verse 14 "And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi. "Look," said Naomi to her, "your sister-in-law has returned to people and to her gods. You should do the same."
But Ruth replied, "Don't ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; where ever you live , I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death separate us! When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.
This story spoke to me specifically about loyalty, love, grief and friendship. So I tried to put those feelings down on canvas.
