← all painters

A face out of the dark

Rembrandt

Nearly all of these are people. Aristotle with his hand on Homer, Flora in her spring clothes, Hendrickje, and several heads and half-lengths that carry no name at all. The light finds a face and lets the rest go.

As a puzzle

The dark is the difficulty. Large parts of these are deep brown with almost nothing in them, and those pieces come down to shape rather than picture. Start low, build the lit face first, then work outward into the shadow.

A good size here: 50–200 pieces.

Also filed under Dutch Golden Age

11 pictures, pick one to build

Aristotle with a Bust of Homer 1653 Flora ca. 1654 Hendrickje Stoffels (1626–1663) mid-1650s Bellona 1633 Christ with a Staff Head of Christ Man in a Turban 1632 Portrait of Gerard de Lairesse 1665–67 Man with a Beard Man with a Steel Gorget Young Woman with a Red Necklace ca. 1645