RKD STUDIES

26 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.

... others lies an open book; one, with his hand flat on the pages of the book, explains something to an invisible audience; the third turns a page with his hand. All three look ahead, and with different expressions, at this gathering of their fellow members who are supposed to be outside the frame, in the place from which the painting is being viewed; so much so that these good syndics seem to be talking to you and provoking you to respond. The discussion must be important and quite lively, because the one holding the bag is getting impatient, you can tell by the slight frown on his forehead, and he seems ready to get up and leave; the one speaking, however, seems very satisfied with his arguments, and his neighbor can see from his face: – hey! what do you have to say to that? No answer is forthcoming.

All three are of about the same age, around forty,¹ and they are wearing the same costume: black doublet and small cloak, plain white collar, large hat with wide brim and big wig with long hanging curls;² because unfortunately, in the last twenty years, since the time of the Night Watch, the costumes have changed, the stunning national costumes have disappeared!

It so happened that Rembrandt, during his career as a painter, had to conform to three kinds of fashions: when the fashion began, about 1630, people still wore the beautiful sixteenth-century pleated collars, firmly in the air; then, when muslin lost its starch,³ the collar was folded back, soft and pleated, ...

27 REMBRANDT.

... over the doublet; this led to the simple collar, cut straight across the breastbone, much like those of today's magistrates and prosecutors. At the same time, the hideous Louis XIV wig was introduced.⁴

The beard also underwent three revolutions in this period: at the time of the Anatomical Lesson there were still full beards, which, moreover, held up well among certain eccentrics and did not disappear altogether until the end of the century; but by this time people shaved a little at the level of the ear, and the fashion was a square beard coming down from the chin, almost as the ancient Assyrians did in their statues. Professor Tulp (1632) and all his audience have beards trimmed this way, except one, who has a full beard. In the Night Watch, there are a few full beards, square goatees, and mustaches with the long Louis XIII mouche. In the case of our three wig-wearing syndics, the mouche is gone and only a light mustache remains. Soon the razor will remove even these last hairs. We see that the revolution in Holland went through the same episodes as in France.

France has always set the tone for Europe in these serious matters of beards and wigs, collars, and hoop skirts.

So here we are in 1661 with the Hollanders. Holland's great original era is already over and will never return.

28 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.

The fourth syndic is an old man sitting in an armchair on the left, seen almost from behind, with his right hand resting on the arm of the armchair; but he turns his head three-quarters around, with a certain rather proud haughtiness, toward the invisible assembly, where the debate seems to be taking place. Perhaps he is seventy years old.⁵ Old age is not liked to be contradicted. Obviously, this grumpy old man has not put on a French wig, and his silver hair protests foreign imports. His white beard has just as faithfully retained its pointed cut just as faithfully. His collar, too, has not yet been able to descend to the shape of the flap and is bifurcated forward into two lateral wings. A bright light strikes this characteristic old head from the left, modelling all its accents.

The fifth, a young man of between twenty-five and thirty, perhaps the son of the old man whom he somewhat resembles from a distance, is naturally more impatient than the others because of his age, and he stands halfway between the old man and the speaker.⁶ His gaze is also drawn to the imaginary gathering. Like his father, he has refused to wear a wig; he is content with his natural hair and still has a pointed beard on his chin. Both are dressed in black and wear the same large traditional hat as their companions, despite the fact that the other three do wear wigs under those hats.⁷

Behind these five main characters, lined up ...

29 REMBRANDT.

... almost on the same plane, from one side of the painting to the other, a sixth figure at some distance also stands smiling. This man, with a fine and sharp face, does not wear a hat and has long hair falling over his shoulders. He is one of the guild's servants.⁸

In the background is a kind of wooden paneling that covers the room and on which on the far right, above the man with the bag, hangs a painting depicting a vague landscape in which a tower can be seen. Above the painting and a small cornice is the signature: Rembrandt, f. 1661.

That's all there is: these six figures, the large rug that takes up a quarter of the canvas and serves as a repoussoir, and a plain, neutral paneled background.

The importance of the painting lies entirely in these extraordinarily vivid heads, and also in the prodigious breadth of execution, in the harmony of color, which is the simplest in the world: only four notes, interacting and making themselves heard, with their sharps and their flats, in a brown scale: the flesh, heads and hands, and whites are glazed with bister; the hair and backgrounds are glazed with brown; the tapestry has brown in its reds; the blacks have brown accents. It always comes down to: C, E, G, C. No discord. No disparity. A single effect. Light is everywhere and air circulates. In the representation of a real event, painting can go no further.

30 MUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM.

Smith, after describing the Syndics rather inaccurately, praises the painting as follows: "Its breadth of effect and power are astonishing; and such is the strength of natural expression which animates the several countenances, and the warm hues of life and health diffused throughout them, that they appear to live and breathe, and look so like reality, that they render the surrounding works of art (... ) cold and lifeless".⁹

The Syndics have been reproduced as etching by J. de Frey [20], as mezzotint by R. Houston [21], and very recently in burin by Kaiser, on a plate begun by Couwenberg [22].¹⁰ There are also many lithographs.

The old catalog of the Amsterdam museum, corrected in 1850, attributed two more paintings to Rembrandt: the portrait of Pieter van Uitenbogaard, now listed as of his school (no. 230),¹¹ and the Beheading of John the Baptist [23], now as Drost, under the title: Herodias accepting the head of John the Baptist (no. 69) (1).¹²

Van Uitenbogaard, a receiver in Amsterdam, was in fact one of the friends of Rembrandt. He even did him some favors as a result of the series of paintings he painted for Prince Frederik Hendrik. Rembrandt etched the portrait of Uitenbogaard ...

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(1) The new cat. transferred Van Uitenbogaard's portrait to the Unknown masters and kept Herodias as Drost.