Rembrandt

The painting here is my rendering of the portrait of Rembrandt, the great Dutch painter in the seventeenth century. His ideal of aesthetics may be summarized by his own words: "choose only one master - nature." Following this vision, he painted things as they are and became the greatest painter known for vivid realism of all time. I especially like the way he dealt with up-close portraits. In this genre, Rembrandt had a special gift to give an impression of a thinking mind behind the face. For example, his self-portrait (see picture on the bottom left) showed himself as a middle-aged man staring out at you with a deep understanding. When comparing this self-portrait of Rembrandt to the smiling Mona Lisa of Da Vinci, I see a real person in Rembrandt whereas a myth in Mona Lisa.I was fascinated by his ability to do such a realistic painting and therefore decided to learn from the master by doing an oil painting based on this portrait. To this end, I did first a quick sketch of the portrait (see picture on the bottom right), which gave me a general idea how I would treat this object. Then, I moved onto the painting part trying to imitate as much as possible what he did in the portrait. In the process, however, I did make a few conscious decisions to deviate from his original work. For example, I changed the color of his eyes from brown to blue in my painting. In doing so, I violated his principle of realism, but gained a new look that to me is interesting. Which version do you like, my friends?