1650 - 1674

Rembrandt

Realism was crucial to Baroque painting, and Rembrandt provides a prime example of Dutch portraiture of the Baroque period. This self-portrait shows us a face stripped of all pretensions. The artist is looking earnestly at himself -- and painting what he sees, producing great art from personal failure.

Self-Portrait (1659)
Location: National Gallery of Art, Washington

Self-Portrait (1669)
Room 23

Johannes Vermeer

Vermeer (1632 - December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He seems never to have been particularly wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings. Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, using bright colours and sometimes expensive pigments, with a preference for cornflower blue and yellow. His choice of subjects was undramatic -- typically a scene of complete ordinariness.