Biography of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Rembrandt (b. July 15, 1606, Leiden, Neth.—d. Oct. 4, 1669, Amsterdam) was born along the banks of the Rhine River as the eight child of miller in 1606. His full name was Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn.

He displayed early artistic prowess and was inspired, along the most of the artist in Europe, by Caravaggio’s (1571-1610) works. Rembrandt attended the University of Leiden but left to study painting.

Rembrandt’s paintings were in high demand from an early age in his home city of Leiden, and soon he was receiving recognition from Amsterdam as well. Rembrandt made the decision to move his studio to the capital and pursue his painting career with more focus.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

By the time he moved to Amsterdam in 1631, he was already a successful painter. An early masterpiece of his was The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolas Tulp, a group portrait painted in 1632.

He completed another famous group portrait, The Night Watch in 1642. Yearning for recognition as a biblical and mythological painter in 1635 he produced his Sacrifice of Isaac and in 1636 the unconventional masterpiece Danae.

Rembrandt is believed to be color vision deficient. Rembrandt seeing the world more or less in brown freed him to calibrate luminosity with a delicacy as expressive as any palette of colors. Color vision deficiency also helps Rembrandt with his etchings, which was a black and white medium in the seventeenth century.
Biography of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn