#Rembrandt's DEADLY commission
Channel: NOT modern | ART HISTORY
Date: 2023-08-29

#shorts 

Rembrandt's first major commission at twenty-five was of a human dissection.  The gruesome scene was constructed as a humanistic idealization of the event.  Important doctors paid to be in the painting.

The man being taken apart was earlier hung for stealing a cloak from a wealthy man in the middle of January in Amsterdam.  The armed robbery got the thief, Aris Kindt, his right hand chopped off and hung.

The public dissection was done later that evening with a large crowd of onlookers.  It was a major event with people like French philosopher René Descartes in attendance.

Rembrandt initially painted the cadaver without his right hand but add it back later.  Experts point out that Rembrandt uses the wrong arm and hand being dissected.  He shows what is a right arm and hand on the left side of the body.  Rembrandt shows how the hand works by portraying the doctor working with models of the doctors hands directly above.