Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/391

B, E M R E M 373 vie, or person for whose life any lands are held by another, it was provided by 6 Anne c. 18 that on application to the Court of Chancery by the person entitled in remainder, reversion, or expect- ancy, the cestui que vie should be produced to the court or its com- missioners, or in default should be taken to be dead. The purchase of a reversionary interest might formerly have been set aside in a court of equity on the ground of inadequacy of price. This rule of equity no longer exists. It was enncted by 31 Viet. c. 4 (which extends to the United Kingdom) that no purchase made bonafide of a reversionary interest in real or personal estate shall be set aside merely on the ground of under-value. The Act does not affect those cases in which the courts relieve against such purchases on the ground of fraud or duress the cases, for instance, of exorbit- ant bargains made by money-lenders with expectant heirs. In Scotland reversion is generally used in a sense approaching that of the equity of redemption of English law. A reversion is either legal, as in an adjudication, or conventional, as in a wadset. Reversions are registered under the system established by the Act 1617 c. 16 (see REGISTRATION). In the United States the Act of 32 Hen. VIII. c. 34 "is held to be in force in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Con- necticut, but was never in force in New York till re-enacted " (Washburn, Real Property, vol. i. 432). (J. Wf.) REMBRANDT (1607-1669). REMBRANDT HARMENS VAN RUN, the chief of the Dutch school of painting and one of the greatest painters the world has seen, was born in Leyden on the 15th July 1607. x It is only within the past thirty years that we have come to know anything of the real history of the man. Up to that time we had but a tissue of fables connected with his name and representing him as ignorant, boorish, and avaricious. These fictions, resting on the loose assertions of Houbraken (De Groote Schoulnirgh, 1718), have been cleared away by the untiring researches of Scheltema and other Dutchmen, notably by C. Vosmaer, whose elaborate work (Rembrandt, sa Vie et ses (Euvres, 1868, 2d ed. 1877) will remain as the basis of our knowledge of the man and of the chronological development of the artist. 2 Rembrandt's high position in European art rests on the originality of his mind, the power of his imagination, his profound sympathy with his subjects, the boldness of his system of light and shade, the thorough- ness of his modelling, his subtle colour, and above all on the intense humanity of the man. He Avas great in con- ception and in execution, a poet as well as a painter, an idealist and also a realist ; and this rare union is the secret of his power. From his dramatic action and mastery of expression Rembrandt has been well called "the Shakespeare of Holland." To understand aright his position in art, we must consider rapidly his sur- roundings and note the influences which affected him ; we shall thus find what he had in common with his time and understand better how far he was really a new power, an original genius. It must be borne in mind that in the beginning of the 17th century Holland had risen to great power. Though not yet formally free from the Spanish yoke, she had broken the fetters by the heroic efforts of the former generation, and had entered on her grand career of national enterprise. Science and literature flourished in her universities, poetry and the stage were favoured by her citizens, and art found a home not only in the capital but in the provincial towns. It was a time also of new ideas. Old conventional forms in religion, philosophy, and art had fallen away, and liberty was inspiring new conceptions. It is with those of art that we have to deal. Here there were no church influences at work to fetter the painter in the choice and treatment of his subject, no academies to prescribe rules. 1 This is now generally accepted as the year of his birth, though some hold it should be 1606 or 1608. 2 Vosmaer's first volume, on the precursors and apprenticeship of Rembrandt, was published in 1863. New light has since been thrown on important points by Dr Bode (Holldndische Malerei, 1883), De Roever, De Vries, and others. Left to himself, therefore, the artist painted the life of the people among whom he lived and the subjects which interested them. It was thus a living history that he painted, scenes from the everyday life and amusements of the people, often mean and vulgar it must be confessed, the civic rulers, the regents of the hospitals and the heads of the guilds, and the civic guards who defended their towns. So also with the religious pictures which were produced under the influence of these environments. The dogmas and legends of the Church of Rome were no longer of interest to such a nation ; but the Bible was read and studied with avidity, and from its page the artist drew directly the scenes of the simple narrative. The Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha were the sources from which, without any interference of Jesuit inquisitors, he drew his inspiration. This change had been coming on steadily since the Reformation, a change that implied a growing freedom from trammels and a larger and more human view of the subjects treated. Perhaps the earliest trace of this new aspect of Bible story is to be found in the pictures painted in Rome about the beginning of the 17th century by Adam Elsheimer of Frankfort, who had undoubtedly a great influence on the Dutch painters studying in Italy. These in their turn carried back to Holland the simplicity and the picturesque effect which they found in Elsheimer's work. Among these, the precursors of Rembrandt, may be mentioned Moeyaert, Ravesteyn, Lastman, Pinas, Honthorst, and Bramer. Influenced doubt- less by these painters, Rembrandt determined to work out his own ideas of art on Dutch soil, resisting apparently every inducement to visit Italy. Though an admirer of the great Italian masters, he yet maintained his own individuality in the most marked manner. It is strange that we have no evidence that he ever met his greatest Dutch rival, the brillant Frans Hals, his senior by some fifteen years. Rembrandt was born in the house No. 3 Weddesteg, on the rampart at Leyden overlooking the Rhine. The house belonged to his father Gerrit Harmen van Rijn, a well-to-do miller, and still exists, but the windmill is no more. He was the fourth son, and, as the older boys had been sent to trade, his parents resolved that he should enter a learned profession. With this view he was sent to the High School at Leyden ; but the boy soon mani- fested his dislike of the prospect and determined to be a painter. Accordingly he was placed for three years under Swanenburch, a connexion of the Van Rijn family. This master was a painter of no great merit, but he enjoyed some reputation from his having studied in Italy. His next master was Lastman of Amsterdam, a painter of very considerable power. In Lasttnan's works we can trace the germs of the colour and sentiment of his greater pupil, though his direct influence cannot have been great, as it is said by Orlers that Rembrandt remained with him only six months, after which time he returned to Leyden, about 1623. During the early years of his life at Leyden Rembrandt seems to have devoted himself entirely to studies, painting and etching the people around him, the beggars and cripples, every picturesque face and form he could get hold of. Life, character, and above all light were the aims of these studies. His mother was a fre- quent model, and we can trace in her features the strong likeness to her son, especially in the portraits of himself at an advanced age. So far as we know there is no likeness of his father, who died about 1632. The last portrait of his mother is that of the Belvidere Gallery of Vienna, painted the year before her death in 1640. One of his sisters also frequently sat to him, and Bode suggests that she must have accompanied him to Amsterdam and kept house for him till he married. This conjecture rests