Rembrandt is widely recognised as the predominant genius of Dutch painting and his broad range of landscape paintings, etchings and drawings have always been appreciated. His landscape works are an important aspect of his career because they developed towards a very unique accomplishment. While his drawings and etchings are very much more carefully observed from nature, Rembrandt used his imagination in creating his extraordinary landscapes. On 29th July 1854, in his journal, Delacroix spoke of the success of Rembrandt’s landscapes: “The landscapes of Rembrandt, Titian Poussin are generally in harmony with their figures. In Rembrandt, and this is perfection, the background and the figure are one and the same. Everything is interesting: one does not separate anything, as in a beautiful view offered by nature in which everything contributes to enchant one.” It can be assumed due to the personal and emotive aspect of his landscapes that they were painted for his own enjoyment rather than for the market. Even though from the beginning in the 1620s, people everywhere bought landscapes, just as they bought genre pieces and still lifes; it was the new fashion, perhaps because of the scientific discoveries of nature. Roughly these artists fell into two categories. Those who …show more content…
If the actual tale is lost in the landscape, the latter has acquired expressive and symbolic power. A technique which is prevalent in all of Rembrandt’s landscapes and visible again in Stormy Landscape (1639)(fig. II). The contrast between the receding storm, which plunges nature into darkness as it goes, and the still pale and ghostly light which streams out of the clouds creates an apocalyptic feeling. These landscapes have small elements of Biblical painting as well as appealing to our subconscious through the compositional