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Here are the key conventions and disfluencies

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to employ throughout the script. 1. Generous

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use of disfluencies. Real speakers use filler

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words to hold the floor while thinking. Use,

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um, uh, like, you know, I mean, well, and so

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constantly, not just in the beginnings of sentences,

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but mid -thought. Example, he was, um, he was

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essentially trying to, you know, completely reinvent

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the genre. 2. False starts and self -corrections.

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People rarely speak in perfectly formed, complete

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sentences. They start a thought, change direction,

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or correct a word on the fly. Use em dashes to

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indicate these abrupt shifts. Do not use ellipses.

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Example. The thing about his, well, the most

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fascinating part of his early work is how he

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handles light. Three, active listening and interjections.

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To avoid long monologues, the listener must constantly

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provide vocal feedback. Use short affirmations

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or reactions to break up the other speaker's

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longer points. Example, expert speaker. So he

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decides to completely abandon the Italian ideal.

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Host speaker, right? Expert speaker. And he just

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starts painting, you know, the gritty reality

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of the streets. Host speaker. Oh, wow. Okay.

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Four, overlaps and interruptions. In dynamic

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conversations, speakers get excited and interrupt

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each other or finish each other's sentences.

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Use em dashes at the end of a line to show a

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speaker being cut off and have the next speaker

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immediately pick up the thought. Example, host

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speaker. But if he's actively trying to imitate

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Rubens, doesn't that just make him a copyist?

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Yeah, you'd think so, but it's actually more

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of a competitive assimilation. Five, colloquialisms

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and conversational phrasing. Avoid overly academic

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or rigid phrasing unless playfully citing a source.

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Use contractions. Didn't. There. And conversational

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transitions. The crazy thing is, but get this,

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I mean, think about it. Example. I mean, the

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guy literally goes bankrupt because he just can't

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stop buying art. It's wild. Six. Direct listener

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engagement. Treat the listener as a silent third

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participant. Use you frequently to draw them

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into thought experiments or visualization. Example.

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If you're listening right now, just imagine trying

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to, you know, perfectly replicate a masterpiece

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with just a tiny brush. Example. Natural notes.

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Have you ever felt this, um... this really intense

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almost suffocating pressure to just to measure

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up to arrival oh absolutely yeah or maybe you've

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caught yourself wearing you know different masks

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depending on who's actually in the room with

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you right it's a survival tactic exactly like

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you know what i mean you're strutting a little

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bit over here playing it incredibly humble over

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there or um projecting total confidence when

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you're actually just terrified inside we all

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do it yeah you craft these persona to navigate

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the world to get the job to win the argument

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or honestly just to survive the day it is a universally

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human impulse really right we are all on some

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fundamental level managing the stagecraft of

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our own lives we act we project right but but

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what if you were a genius at it what if you understood

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the strutting the face paint the uh The belly

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laugh and the half -stifled sob better than literally

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anyone else alive? That's the core question,

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isn't it? It is. And today we are going on a

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really meticulous deep dive into Simon Schama's

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monumental 1999 book, Rembrandt's Eyes. Such

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an incredible text. it's massive and our mission

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for you today listening to this is highly specific

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because we aren't just reading a standard biography

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no not at all we are looking to extract the quiddity

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like the absolute unvarnished essence of Rembrandt,

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Harmanzoon, Van Ryn. The real man underneath

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all the paint. Exactly. We're skipping the superficial

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myths, the whole starving artist cliche thing,

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and going straight into Skama's text to explore

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how this man fashioned his personae, how he wrestled

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with these fierce, almost obsessive artistic

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rivalries. Yeah, how he ultimately transitioned

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from painting those dazzling outward Baroque

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spectacles to capturing these really profound

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inward human truths. It's such a wild journey,

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and it's the perfect mission for this text, right?

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Oh, without a doubt. Because to really understand

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Rembrandt, Skama argues that you have to understand

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that for him, much like for Shakespeare, the

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world genuinely was a stage. I love that comparison.

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It's brilliant. Skama makes this comparison early

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on, pointing out that Rembrandt knew the full

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repertoire of gesture and grimace. Right. He

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knew exactly what it looked like to seduce, to

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intimidate, to wheedle, and to console. He had

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that, what does Shama call it? An unsparing intelligence.

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Yes. Unsparing intelligence. Right. But paired

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simultaneously with the bottomless compassion.

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I mean, he wasn't just passively observing humanity.

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He was actively diagnosing it. Diagnosing it.

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I want to hold on to that word. Because to get

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to the man who could diagnose humanity, we first

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have to sort of clear away a massive amount of

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historical debris. Oh, centuries of it. Literally

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centuries. As Shama sets up the broad view of

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his legacy. He hits us with the staggering reality.

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The actual hard documentary facts of Rembrandt's

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life are, they're incredibly scarce. Shockingly

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scarce for someone so famous. Right. Like, we

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know he was a Layden Miller son. We know he briefly

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found immense rock star level fame in Amsterdam.

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True. We know his genius was only fitfully recognized

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by his contemporaries as he got older. And sadly,

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we know he fell into crushing bankruptcy and

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died in poverty. But that's just a skeleton.

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It's the bare minimum. Yeah. And because of those

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massive gaps in the historical record, people

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have projected literally whatever they want onto

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him for centuries. Well, you know, nature abhors

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a vacuum and so does art history. Oh, for sure.

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The legends, those romanticized visions of the

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tortured genius, they flourish wildly to fill

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the spaces where the documentary evidence is

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just thin. And some of those projections are

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deeply unsettling. I actually want to bring up

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something specific from the source text here,

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just, you know, reporting the historical facts

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exactly as Shama lays them out to show how wild

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this co -optation gets. It gets very dark. It

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does. So in 1944, Dutch collaborators with the

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Nazi occupation actually attempted to make Rembrandt

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a poster child for greater German culture. They

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literally tried to promote a national Rembrandt

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Day on his birthday. And it was designed as this

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popular alternative to the the surreptitiously

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patriotic celebrations of the exiled Queen Wilhelmina's

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birthday. Right. Trying to replace a national

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symbol with their own twisted version. Exactly.

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And in doing so, they. conveniently ignored though

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apparently some high -ranking ss officers were

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very aware of it rembrandt's well -documented

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habit of living among and keeping company with

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the jewish population in amsterdam they just

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brushed it under the rug completely it is a grotesque

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historical footnote obviously but shama includes

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it to show how powerfully and sometimes terribly

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different factions have tried to claim his legacy

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We're just looking at the facts here, but it's

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chilling. It really is a stark, chilling example

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of how an artist's legacy can be entirely decoupled

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from their actual lived reality, right? And just

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co -opted for massive ideological purposes. Yeah.

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When you strip away the man, the name Rembrandt

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just becomes this empty vessel for whatever narrative

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a political movement or cultural institution

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wants to pour into it. Wow. An empty vessel.

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That's a great way to put it. But, you know,

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even putting extreme political co -optation aside,

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art historians themselves have struggled for

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over a century to pin down the quote unquote

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real Rembrandt. Right. Because of the sheer volume

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of stuff out there. Exactly. For decades, there

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were literally hundreds and hundreds of Rembrandt

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Manor paintings confidently attributed to him

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in museums all over the world. OK, wait, I need

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to pause on Rembrandt Manor. Are we talking about

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outright forgeries here, like people in dark

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basements trying to scam museums? Oh, no, not

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necessarily forgeries in the modern criminal

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sense. Yeah. We are talking about his pupils,

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his imitators and the massive workshop he ran.

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OK, which brings up the famous Rembrandt Research

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Project. Shama spent some time on this and it

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is fascinating. It was a massive undertaking.

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Yeah. Their whole original mission in the late

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20th century was to sort out once and for all.

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The unmistakably authentic works from the fakes,

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the imitators, and the peoples. Right. They wanted

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the true master. They wanted the guy underneath

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all that muscular impasto and theatrical lighting.

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And honestly, reading about their methodology,

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it feels exactly like the modern struggle for

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digital authentication. Not really. How do you

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mean? Like social media verification. Exactly

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like that. It's like the researchers were trying

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to verify a historical blue checkmark on these

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paintings. Ah, I see. You know, they wanted an

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algorithm, a strict set of criteria. Like if

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the brush stroke does X and the pigment is Y,

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boom, it gets the verified Rembrandt badge. Right.

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A formula for genius. But the whole problem,

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which Skama points out, is that Rembrandt's style,

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that famous, dramatic, thickly painted manner.

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was actually designed to be mimicked by his workshop.

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It was brand. Yes. It was a brand. You can't

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just run a set of rigid criteria to find the

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authentic Rembrandt when the artist himself was

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actively intentionally training an entire studio

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of apprentices to paint exactly like him to meet

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market demand. He wanted them to be indistinguishable.

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Right. So he could sell more paintings. That

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is a highly perceptive analogy. I mean, he was

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essentially scaling his output like a modern

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startup. Yeah. And it is exactly why the Rembrandt

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Research Project, at least in the eyes of some

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scholars. up making the distinctions less clear

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rather than more. Oh, really? It backfired. In

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some marginal cases, yes. They found that his

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followers, painters like Carol Fabricius or Ferdinand

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Boll, they could imitate his style to a degree

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of plausibility that makes serious objective

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differentiation almost impossible. Wow. Because

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of this profound difficulty in isolating the

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man from his brand, modern art history often

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reacts by submerging Rembrandt entirely into

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his context. Right. The trend is to say, well,

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there is no lone genius. They argue he's just

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a product of the Amsterdam economy or a reflection

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of his religious confession or simply a mirror

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of the specific demands of the Dutch burgers

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who paid him. Exactly. They try to explain them

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away using economics and sociology. But Shama

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pushes back against that sociological reductionism

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vehemently. Like this is the core thesis of the

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book. It is. Shama insists that while the economy,

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the politics and the culture of the Dutch Golden

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Age absolutely mattered, the true bio... So let's

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look at the paint. Let's do it. And specifically,

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to really grasp what we're looking at, we need

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to understand where that paint comes from culturally.

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Like, why does Rembrandt paint the way he does?

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Right. What's his artistic DNA? To answer that,

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Shama takes us deep into the Netherlandish tradition.

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Because you can't understand Rembrandt's rebellion

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unless you understand the dominant artistic rules

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of the 16th and 17th centuries. Which are dictated

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almost entirely by the Italians, right? Precisely.

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We have to introduce the great Italian arbiter

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of taste, Giorgio Vasari, and his ultimate champion,

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Michelangelo. Big names. The biggest. The Italian

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Renaissance view, which basically dominated European

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intellectual thought about art, prized a concept

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called disegno. Okay, disegno. I always see this

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translated simply as drawing, but Shama makes

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it clear it's much heavier than that, doesn't

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it? Oh, much heavier. Yeah. Disegno isn't just

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drawing in the sense of a quick, messy sketch

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to figure out where a hand goes on the canvas.

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For the Italians, disegno is the shaping idea

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behind the work of art. It is deeply rooted in

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Neoplatonic philosophy. They view the perfectly

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drawn line as the direct transcription of a godly

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sign. The Diocegna. The divine sign. Wow. It

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is the idealized intellectual divine form made

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visible. Because the concept was so elevated,

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the Italians, generally speaking, looked down

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with considerable disdain on genres of art that

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merely copied the messy, unidealized, flawed

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physical world. So things like painting a bowl

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of fruit or a specific landscape or even just

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a regular person's face. Exactly. Still lifes,

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landscapes, portraiture. They were considered

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trivial. Just copy. Right. They were the work

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of mere artificers, mechanics who were just copying

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what was in front of them, not true visionary

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painters who were channeling the divine intellect

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through the segno. But up in the north, in the

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cold, damp, merchant -driven, Netherlandish tradition,

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they are playing a completely different philosophical

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game. A very different game. Stama introduces

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us to a figure named Lampsonius, who steps up

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to champion the exact genres the Italians are

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turning their noses up at. Lampsonius basically

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says, look at Harry Met Debless, look at Joachim

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Pattener. He unapologetically celebrates the

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Netherlandish mastery of landscape. And crucially,

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he aligns this northern tradition with the Venetian

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concept of color. Yes, the Venetian use of color.

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Think of Titian. Okay. For the Venetians and

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the Northerners, color is an active, tactile,

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structural thing. The Florentine and Roman artists

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often used color almost like an afterthought.

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Like coloring in a coloring book. Essentially,

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yes. Just tinting in the spaces between those

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divinely inspired lines of Decino. But the northern

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tradition used color actively to model the forms

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themselves. The paint wasn't just filling a boundary.

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The paint was the boundary. Wow. It's a direct

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contradiction of the Italian assertion that the

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intellectual line is everything. Let me make

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sure I'm wrapping my head around this. So the

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Italians are basically acting like architects.

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Okay, I like that. The blueprint, the drawing,

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the idea is the pure art. And the actual building

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is just the necessary physical execution. But

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the northern tradition and the Venetians are

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more like sculptors working with wet clay. The

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physical, messy, colorful material itself is

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where the art happens. That is an excellent way

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to conceptualize it. Yes. So if you're the listener

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right now, you might be asking, why does this

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centuries -old art theory matter for our deep

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dive today? It matters immensely. It matters

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because it means Rembrandt inherits a cultural

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tradition that places immense intrinsic value

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on the optical and tactile reality of the world.

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Yes. He isn't brought up trying to paint idealized,

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flawless, philosophical concepts of gods and

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heroes. He is culturally wired to paint the sensory

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truth of, you know, a wrinkled forehead or the

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specific gritty way light catches a piece of

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rough, cheap fabric. Exactly. This northern rejection

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of pure Italian idealism lays the absolute groundwork

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for his. hyper -detailed sensory approach to

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reality. It grounds him. It grounds him in the

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dirt, the flesh, the blood, and the physical

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light of the world. And that philosophical grounding

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leads us directly into his actual physical education

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00:14:47,169 --> 00:14:49,570
in his hometown of Leiden. Chapter five of the

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book. Yes. Shema covers this brilliantly. And

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in doing so, he forcefully debunks this incredibly

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persistent myth of Rembrandt as this clumsy,

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unlettered... poorly educated savant who just

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sort of stumbled into genius. I love how Shama

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dismantles that. The myth paints him as this

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peasant who just picked up a brush and magic

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happened. But he grew up in Leiden, which was

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essentially the Oxford or Cambridge of Holland

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00:15:14,059 --> 00:15:16,360
at the time. Was an intellectual hub. It was

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the most academic city in the Republic. He had

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the best classical education that city could

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offer. Shama points out that his later work is

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constantly deeply marked by an intense literary

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passion. We know from the tragic inventory of

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his possessions taken during his later bankruptcy

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that he had a massive, sophisticated collection

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00:15:35,750 --> 00:15:38,990
of prints, classical folios, and historical texts.

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00:15:39,309 --> 00:15:41,490
He wasn't just a guy who liked to paint. No,

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00:15:41,490 --> 00:15:43,769
he was incredibly well -read. He just didn't

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00:15:43,769 --> 00:15:45,809
feel the need to show off his classical learning

341
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by peppering his paintings with obscure Latin

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00:15:48,769 --> 00:15:51,250
inscriptions the way other ambitious artists

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00:15:51,250 --> 00:15:53,110
did. Right, trying to prove they were smart.

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00:15:53,409 --> 00:15:56,590
Exactly. His intellect was embedded in the psychology

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of the figures, not written on a banner above

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their heads. But the most surprising part of

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00:16:00,850 --> 00:16:03,669
his early Leiden crucible isn't his formal university

348
00:16:03,669 --> 00:16:05,929
schooling. It's his apprenticeship. Oh, this

349
00:16:05,929 --> 00:16:07,809
is a great detail. This is the part of the book

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00:16:07,809 --> 00:16:09,950
where I actually had to reread a paragraph to

351
00:16:09,950 --> 00:16:11,990
make sure I understood it. Rembrandt goes to

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00:16:11,990 --> 00:16:14,830
study with a man named Jacob Isaacs van Swannenberg.

353
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A local Leidenmaster. Who specialized almost

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entirely in paintings of sorcery, witchcraft,

355
00:16:20,470 --> 00:16:24,230
and architectural hellscapes. Yes. Right. I'm

356
00:16:24,230 --> 00:16:26,909
sorry, but how does the greatest painter of human

357
00:16:26,909 --> 00:16:30,750
realism spend his formative teenage years apprenticed

358
00:16:30,750 --> 00:16:34,110
to a guy painting demon -infested apocalyptic

359
00:16:34,110 --> 00:16:36,659
visions? It's quite the contrast. It seems like

360
00:16:36,659 --> 00:16:39,340
a completely bizarre pairing. Did Rembrandt ever

361
00:16:39,340 --> 00:16:43,860
paint demons? He did not. Truthfully, Rembrandt

362
00:16:43,860 --> 00:16:46,419
didn't adopt any of Van Swannenberg's eccentric,

363
00:16:46,679 --> 00:16:48,820
infernal subject matter. He wasn't interested

364
00:16:48,820 --> 00:16:51,080
in painting the sires of hell. So what did he

365
00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:53,779
learn from him? What he did get in that sorcerer's

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00:16:53,779 --> 00:16:56,600
cell, which Scamma emphasizes, was something

367
00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:59,779
far more important for a young artist. The sheer,

368
00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:02,759
drudging, physical fundamentals of the craft.

369
00:17:02,919 --> 00:17:06,460
The manual labor of art. Yes. grinding the raw

370
00:17:06,460 --> 00:17:08,960
pigments by hand, priming the canvases with layers

371
00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,960
of glue and chalk. And then there is this specific

372
00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:15,839
concept Xiaomei introduces called dudverf. Dudverf,

373
00:17:15,839 --> 00:17:18,940
which translates literally to dead coloring.

374
00:17:19,180 --> 00:17:22,099
Yes. Can you explain how exactly dudverf works?

375
00:17:22,299 --> 00:17:24,140
Because it sounds incredibly counterintuitive

376
00:17:24,140 --> 00:17:25,900
to paint something dead before you make it alive.

377
00:17:26,220 --> 00:17:28,890
It does sound ominous, doesn't it? But it's a

378
00:17:28,890 --> 00:17:31,690
structural necessity. Before you ever apply the

379
00:17:31,690 --> 00:17:34,250
brilliant reds, the deep blues, or the luminous

380
00:17:34,250 --> 00:17:36,690
flesh tones, the living colors, you sketch in

381
00:17:36,690 --> 00:17:39,390
the basic lines and the volumetric masses of

382
00:17:39,390 --> 00:17:42,329
the composition using a dark brown or dark gray

383
00:17:42,329 --> 00:17:44,289
monochrome. So you're just painting shadows.

384
00:17:44,630 --> 00:17:46,289
You are essentially painting the shadows first.

385
00:17:46,549 --> 00:17:49,150
This establishes the foundational values of light

386
00:17:49,150 --> 00:17:51,410
and dark, mapping out the architecture of the

387
00:17:51,410 --> 00:17:53,509
lighting before the distraction of color is introduced.

388
00:17:53,750 --> 00:17:56,279
Oh, wow. Rembrandt learned from the ground up

389
00:17:56,279 --> 00:17:59,039
how to physically build a painting, shadow by

390
00:17:59,039 --> 00:18:02,000
shadow. So he's mastering the structural shadows

391
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:05,279
with Van Swannenberg, but he's also absorbing

392
00:18:05,279 --> 00:18:08,700
the dominant art theories of the day, specifically

393
00:18:08,700 --> 00:18:11,339
the writings of Carol Van Mander. And Van Mander

394
00:18:11,339 --> 00:18:13,579
wrote about this concept called reflexi const,

395
00:18:13,859 --> 00:18:16,859
the art of reflection. I was blown away by this

396
00:18:16,859 --> 00:18:19,430
detail in the text. It's a crucial concept. It's

397
00:18:19,430 --> 00:18:21,609
the instruction that flesh tones shouldn't just

398
00:18:21,609 --> 00:18:24,369
be painted using a generic flesh color pigment.

399
00:18:24,569 --> 00:18:27,509
If you want it to look real, the skin needs to

400
00:18:27,509 --> 00:18:30,069
be subtly shaded with the reflection of the environment.

401
00:18:30,450 --> 00:18:33,210
Exactly. Van Mander taught that if a subject

402
00:18:33,210 --> 00:18:36,630
is wearing a crimson cloak, a subtle blush of

403
00:18:36,630 --> 00:18:38,789
that crimson must be reflected in the shadows

404
00:18:38,789 --> 00:18:41,250
of their jawline. That is so detailed. If they

405
00:18:41,250 --> 00:18:43,589
are standing in a verdant landscape, the flesh

406
00:18:43,589 --> 00:18:47,079
must carry a faint tint of green. It is an intense,

407
00:18:47,180 --> 00:18:49,539
almost scientific study of how light behaves

408
00:18:49,539 --> 00:18:52,140
as it bounces off different surfaces and textures.

409
00:18:52,339 --> 00:18:55,279
It's like early modern ray tracing in computer

410
00:18:55,279 --> 00:18:58,099
graphics, figuring out exactly how photons bounce.

411
00:18:58,650 --> 00:19:01,190
And Van Mander also noted in his writings that

412
00:19:01,190 --> 00:19:03,609
candlelight is the absolute hardest light to

413
00:19:03,609 --> 00:19:06,630
master because of how it flickers and casts multiple

414
00:19:06,630 --> 00:19:09,509
complex shadows. And, of course, knowing Rembrandt's

415
00:19:09,509 --> 00:19:11,710
personality. He takes that as a personal challenge.

416
00:19:11,829 --> 00:19:14,630
He absolutely does. He leans right into it. But

417
00:19:14,630 --> 00:19:16,910
we have to remember that his relentless drive

418
00:19:16,910 --> 00:19:19,410
for mastery wasn't happening in a vacuum. No,

419
00:19:19,529 --> 00:19:22,410
he had competition. It was forged in the fires

420
00:19:22,410 --> 00:19:25,970
of an intense, highly competitive, and claustrophobic

421
00:19:25,970 --> 00:19:28,670
friendship. Jan Levens. Jan Levens. If you are

422
00:19:28,670 --> 00:19:30,869
listening to this, I want you to imagine the

423
00:19:30,869 --> 00:19:33,289
dynamic Scalma describes here. You have these

424
00:19:33,289 --> 00:19:37,069
two incredibly ambitious, arrogant, brilliant

425
00:19:37,069 --> 00:19:40,470
young prodigies. Both with huge egos. Huge egos.

426
00:19:40,490 --> 00:19:42,269
They are roughly the same age, sharing a studio

427
00:19:42,269 --> 00:19:44,450
space, or at least sharing a very tight creative

428
00:19:44,450 --> 00:19:47,309
ecosystem in the small city of Leiden. The great

429
00:19:47,309 --> 00:19:49,809
diplomat and art patron, Konstantin Huygens,

430
00:19:49,970 --> 00:19:52,549
actually visited them during this period. And

431
00:19:52,549 --> 00:19:55,089
he explicitly compared them to the legendary

432
00:19:55,089 --> 00:19:58,869
ancient Greek rivals, Zeuxis. and parrhasius

433
00:19:58,869 --> 00:20:02,670
wow he saw them as locked in this historic contest

434
00:20:02,670 --> 00:20:05,190
for supremacy but reading the text i was trying

435
00:20:05,190 --> 00:20:07,569
to figure out the vibe of this relationship was

436
00:20:07,569 --> 00:20:11,069
this a friendly collaborative iron sharpens iron

437
00:20:11,069 --> 00:20:15,009
kind of partnership or was this a jealous cutthroat

438
00:20:15,009 --> 00:20:17,490
race to secure the best patronage from the stat

439
00:20:17,490 --> 00:20:20,819
holders court in the hague shima's Meticulous

440
00:20:20,819 --> 00:20:23,559
analysis of their work from this period suggests

441
00:20:23,559 --> 00:20:27,099
it was a robust, volatile mix of both. Really?

442
00:20:27,299 --> 00:20:29,920
Yeah, there was undeniable mutual emulation.

443
00:20:30,039 --> 00:20:32,420
They were learning from each other at a rapid

444
00:20:32,420 --> 00:20:35,680
pace. For example, we know they shared specific

445
00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:38,400
innovative techniques. Like what? Well, they

446
00:20:38,400 --> 00:20:40,819
both liked using the hard wooden stub end of

447
00:20:40,819 --> 00:20:43,599
their brushes to physically scratch the details

448
00:20:43,599 --> 00:20:46,700
of individual hairs into the thick, wet paint.

449
00:20:47,019 --> 00:20:48,980
rather than painting the hair on top. Oh, that's

450
00:20:48,980 --> 00:20:51,220
so cool. Like, literally carving into the paint.

451
00:20:51,279 --> 00:20:53,519
And they shared models, too. They did. You look

452
00:20:53,519 --> 00:20:55,880
at the paintings Shama reproduces from this era,

453
00:20:55,940 --> 00:20:58,339
and you see the exact same local light and faces

454
00:20:58,339 --> 00:21:00,259
popping up in both of their works. It's like

455
00:21:00,259 --> 00:21:02,940
a shared cast of actors. Exactly. There's this

456
00:21:02,940 --> 00:21:06,940
one imposing, bald old man with a very distinct

457
00:21:06,940 --> 00:21:10,240
cleft lip. He plays St. Paul in a Rembrandt painting.

458
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:13,200
Then he turns around and plays Jeremiah for Rembrandt.

459
00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:16,039
And then he wanders over to Liven's easel and

460
00:21:16,039 --> 00:21:19,079
poses as Joke. And there's a heavily wrinkled,

461
00:21:19,079 --> 00:21:21,480
large -eyed old woman they both paint over and

462
00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:24,380
over again. Often referred to as Rembrandt's

463
00:21:24,380 --> 00:21:26,500
mother, though her true identity is debated.

464
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:28,660
Right. They were looking over each other's shoulders

465
00:21:28,660 --> 00:21:31,319
constantly. If Livens finished a massive, dramatic

466
00:21:31,319 --> 00:21:33,940
history painting, Rembrandt would take it as

467
00:21:33,940 --> 00:21:37,319
a direct challenge to paint the same theme. attempting

468
00:21:37,319 --> 00:21:39,859
to outsmart Leibniz in the psychological depth

469
00:21:39,859 --> 00:21:42,839
or the complexity of the lighting. But as intense

470
00:21:42,839 --> 00:21:45,640
and dramatic as that Leiden rivalry was, Leibniz

471
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:47,900
was really just the guy sitting at the desk next

472
00:21:47,900 --> 00:21:50,359
to him. A local rival. Exactly. If you zoomed

473
00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:52,819
out to the European stage, the real benchmark,

474
00:21:53,059 --> 00:21:55,279
the shadow looming over both of them, and frankly

475
00:21:55,279 --> 00:21:57,579
over every single ambitious artist in Northern

476
00:21:57,579 --> 00:22:01,059
Europe, was Peter Paul Rubens. Yes, Rubens. Schumann

477
00:22:01,059 --> 00:22:03,119
describes him in the text as the prince of painters

478
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:06,759
and the painter of princes. He is the absolute

479
00:22:06,759 --> 00:22:09,460
gold standard of the Baroque era. He operates

480
00:22:09,460 --> 00:22:12,259
on a scale of wealth, fame, and aristocratic

481
00:22:12,259 --> 00:22:15,200
grandeur that a young Miller's son in Leiden

482
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,000
could scarcely comprehend. And this introduces

483
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,660
a critical psychological and artistic concept

484
00:22:20,660 --> 00:22:24,240
Shema calls the paragon. I know it means comparison,

485
00:22:24,559 --> 00:22:27,900
but what did a paragon actually signify in Rembrandt's

486
00:22:27,900 --> 00:22:30,579
competitive worldview? In the Renaissance and

487
00:22:30,579 --> 00:22:33,299
Baroque artistic mindset, a paragon meant two

488
00:22:33,299 --> 00:22:36,700
things simultaneously. It was the absolute acme

489
00:22:36,700 --> 00:22:39,420
of perfection in a specific field, and therefore

490
00:22:39,420 --> 00:22:41,779
it was the ultimate object of competition. The

491
00:22:41,779 --> 00:22:44,539
person to beat. Exactly. Think of the historical

492
00:22:44,539 --> 00:22:47,779
precedents. Appels and Protogenes in antiquity,

493
00:22:47,900 --> 00:22:49,819
Michelangelo and Raphael in the Renaissance.

494
00:22:50,299 --> 00:22:53,220
To be considered truly great, historically great,

495
00:22:53,319 --> 00:22:55,119
you couldn't just be the best in your town. You

496
00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:57,339
had to pick a giant of the age and wrestle them

497
00:22:57,339 --> 00:23:00,200
for the crown. And Rembrandt, with his staggering

498
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,099
ambition, picked Rubens. He aimed for the very

499
00:23:03,099 --> 00:23:06,329
top. He spends almost 10 formative years essentially

500
00:23:06,329 --> 00:23:08,809
trying to make himself over in Rubens' image,

501
00:23:09,089 --> 00:23:11,450
which is wild because their natural styles seem

502
00:23:11,450 --> 00:23:13,410
so fundamentally different. They really were.

503
00:23:13,609 --> 00:23:16,109
Rembrandt had this natural inclination for small

504
00:23:16,109 --> 00:23:18,750
-scale, highly detailed, intimately psychological

505
00:23:18,750 --> 00:23:23,289
work. Shama calls it miniatura. But Rubens was

506
00:23:23,289 --> 00:23:26,390
famous for maximatura. Exactly. Maximatura is

507
00:23:26,390 --> 00:23:29,970
the grandiose, crashing, dazzling Baroque spectacle.

508
00:23:30,619 --> 00:23:33,980
It's massive canvases filled with dozens of twisting,

509
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:37,799
voluptuous, terrifyingly energetic bodies, swirling

510
00:23:37,799 --> 00:23:40,440
drapery and blinding divine light. Just huge

511
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,420
action sequences. Right. And Rembrandt, observing

512
00:23:43,420 --> 00:23:45,740
this, decides he has to inflate his own art to

513
00:23:45,740 --> 00:23:48,079
match that scale. It's like a brilliant independent

514
00:23:48,079 --> 00:23:51,640
filmmaker who specializes in quiet, intense character

515
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:54,180
dramas suddenly decide they have to direct a

516
00:23:54,180 --> 00:23:57,000
$200 million Marvel movie just to prove they're

517
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:59,200
the best director in the world. That is precisely

518
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,009
the dynamic. And Shama makes a profound psychological

519
00:24:02,009 --> 00:24:04,930
observation here. He argues that for Rembrandt

520
00:24:04,930 --> 00:24:07,150
to eventually become the singular, unmistakable

521
00:24:07,150 --> 00:24:09,769
Rembrandt we know today, he first had to become

522
00:24:09,769 --> 00:24:12,130
someone else's double. He had to fake it till

523
00:24:12,130 --> 00:24:14,589
he made it. In a way, he had to try on the oversized,

524
00:24:14,890 --> 00:24:16,990
flamboyant robes of the great Flemish Baroque

525
00:24:16,990 --> 00:24:19,609
master to see how they fit his own frame. And

526
00:24:19,609 --> 00:24:21,569
frankly, as Scumma points out, sometimes they

527
00:24:21,569 --> 00:24:24,170
didn't fit well at all. You have the incorrigibly

528
00:24:24,170 --> 00:24:27,029
peculiar Rembrandt, this maker of subtle internal

529
00:24:27,029 --> 00:24:29,789
visions, struggling to contain himself within

530
00:24:29,789 --> 00:24:32,490
the loud, extroverted, grandiose habit of Rubens.

531
00:24:32,569 --> 00:24:35,650
And he was obsessed. So obsessed. The text notes

532
00:24:35,650 --> 00:24:38,549
that in 1637, even as he's establishing himself,

533
00:24:39,009 --> 00:24:41,789
Rembrandt literally goes to an auction and buys

534
00:24:41,789 --> 00:24:47,720
Rubens' painting, Hero and Leander. For 424 .5

535
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:50,980
guilders. A massive sum. He pays a fortune to

536
00:24:50,980 --> 00:24:52,900
bring the master directly into his own home in

537
00:24:52,900 --> 00:24:54,940
Amsterdam so he can stare at it, study it, and

538
00:24:54,940 --> 00:24:56,920
try to decode its power. But underneath this

539
00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:59,880
emulation, there's a deep geographic and social

540
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:02,819
jealousy that we have to acknowledge to understand

541
00:25:02,819 --> 00:25:04,960
Rembrandt's drive. Oh, the jealousy must have

542
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:06,740
been in Tess. Rembrandt is getting good work,

543
00:25:06,779 --> 00:25:09,579
yes. He is patronized by Constantine Huygens

544
00:25:09,579 --> 00:25:11,460
and the Prince of Orange in The Hague. He's a

545
00:25:11,460 --> 00:25:14,470
success. But Rubens, Rubens is operating on a

546
00:25:14,470 --> 00:25:16,329
completely different geopolitical level. Yeah.

547
00:25:16,410 --> 00:25:18,309
Rubens has massive commissions from the King

548
00:25:18,309 --> 00:25:20,809
of Spain and Madrid, from Charles the First in

549
00:25:20,809 --> 00:25:23,789
London, from Marie de Medici in Paris. Rubens

550
00:25:23,789 --> 00:25:26,690
is a literal aristocrat and a working diplomat.

551
00:25:26,690 --> 00:25:29,549
Moving seamlessly between courts. Negotiating

552
00:25:29,549 --> 00:25:32,710
peace treaties while painting masterpieces. Rembrandt,

553
00:25:32,710 --> 00:25:35,289
by comparison, is basically a very talented.

554
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:39,119
local bourgeois citizen. That disparity in worldly

555
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,660
status, the sheer glamour of Rubens' life, had

556
00:25:42,660 --> 00:25:45,640
to sting a man with Rembrandt's ego. Oh, undoubtedly.

557
00:25:46,079 --> 00:25:48,859
And ultimately, after a decade of wrestling with

558
00:25:48,859 --> 00:25:52,099
this ghost, Rembrandt seems to realize a crucial

559
00:25:52,099 --> 00:25:55,099
liberating truth. He cannot beat Rubens at his

560
00:25:55,099 --> 00:25:57,759
own game. No, he can't out Rubens Rubens. The

561
00:25:57,759 --> 00:26:01,660
Flemish master owns the market on swirling aristocratic

562
00:26:01,660 --> 00:26:05,200
mythological spectacles. So what does a strategic

563
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,279
genius do when he can't win the game? He changes

564
00:26:08,279 --> 00:26:10,960
the game entirely. He pivots. He pivots geographically

565
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,500
to a new city and he pivots artistically to a

566
00:26:13,500 --> 00:26:15,579
new genre. Which brings us to his arrival in

567
00:26:15,579 --> 00:26:18,960
Amsterdam in the early 1630s. Yes, part four

568
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:21,789
of the book. Now, moving from the courtly ambitions

569
00:26:21,789 --> 00:26:23,890
of the Hague to the merchant city of Amsterdam

570
00:26:23,890 --> 00:26:26,670
wasn't a retreat. Schama is very clear it was

571
00:26:26,670 --> 00:26:28,809
the main chance. Amsterdam was the center of

572
00:26:28,809 --> 00:26:31,569
the world at that moment. It was exploding into

573
00:26:31,569 --> 00:26:34,730
this unprecedented global emporium. It was flush

574
00:26:34,730 --> 00:26:38,490
with cash from... global trade. And Rembrandt

575
00:26:38,490 --> 00:26:41,309
decides to take a genre that Rubens had largely

576
00:26:41,309 --> 00:26:43,809
abandoned as beneath his dignity portraiture

577
00:26:43,809 --> 00:26:46,789
and elevate it. Right. He decides to make painting

578
00:26:46,789 --> 00:26:49,750
local merchants as prestigious, as psychologically

579
00:26:49,750 --> 00:26:53,369
complex and as lucrative as painting Greek gods.

580
00:26:53,589 --> 00:26:56,109
But doing that requires a completely different

581
00:26:56,109 --> 00:26:59,200
technical and philosophical approach. He can't

582
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,180
rely on the swirling, dramatic action of a mythology

583
00:27:02,180 --> 00:27:04,880
scene to create interest. There's no action,

584
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:07,299
just a person sitting there. Exactly. He has

585
00:27:07,299 --> 00:27:09,559
to find the drama in the absolute stillness of

586
00:27:09,559 --> 00:27:12,240
a face. He has to make the internal life of a

587
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:14,319
Dutch burger as compelling as the Battle of the

588
00:27:14,319 --> 00:27:16,990
Amazons. And the way he does this mechanically,

589
00:27:17,069 --> 00:27:19,250
how he approaches painting flesh during this

590
00:27:19,250 --> 00:27:22,150
Amsterdam period is astonishing. Chamas spends

591
00:27:22,150 --> 00:27:24,869
pages on this. That's a masterclass. Rembrandt

592
00:27:24,869 --> 00:27:27,589
isn't just painting smooth, idealized porcelain

593
00:27:27,589 --> 00:27:30,109
skin like the court painters. He is constructing

594
00:27:30,109 --> 00:27:32,990
flesh tones from a shockingly wide, earthy range

595
00:27:32,990 --> 00:27:37,329
of colors. He is using carmine reds, dents, heavy

596
00:27:37,329 --> 00:27:40,150
yellow ochres, and as we discussed earlier with

597
00:27:40,150 --> 00:27:42,910
Reflexicons, various shades of green and gray.

598
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:45,200
He is using the paint to show the differential

599
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,059
wear and tear of age on a face. A literal wear

600
00:27:48,059 --> 00:27:50,640
and tear. He is painting the sagging of the jowls,

601
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:52,980
the puffy exhaustion under the eyes, the way

602
00:27:52,980 --> 00:27:55,279
blood vessels break under the skin of a heavy

603
00:27:55,279 --> 00:27:58,400
drinker. He is essentially painting the mileage

604
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,519
on his subjects. He is treating the human face

605
00:28:01,519 --> 00:28:04,480
as a landscape of experience. And this meticulous,

606
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,220
almost surgical diagnostic approach to the human

607
00:28:07,220 --> 00:28:11,009
form reaches its absolute. Undisputed pinnacle

608
00:28:11,009 --> 00:28:13,529
in his breakthrough masterpiece, The Anatomy

609
00:28:13,529 --> 00:28:16,349
Lesson of Dr. Nicholas Tulp. Oh, this painting.

610
00:28:16,690 --> 00:28:18,410
This painting made him the most sought -after

611
00:28:18,410 --> 00:28:21,289
artist in Amsterdam almost overnight. But Shama

612
00:28:21,289 --> 00:28:23,670
insists we cannot look at it just as a highly

613
00:28:23,670 --> 00:28:26,529
competent group portrait of some guild surgeons.

614
00:28:26,829 --> 00:28:29,410
It is a profound philosophical statement about

615
00:28:29,410 --> 00:28:31,750
human existence. Let's do a massive deep dive

616
00:28:31,750 --> 00:28:33,789
into this specific painting, because Shama's

617
00:28:33,789 --> 00:28:36,190
analysis of it completely changed how I will

618
00:28:36,190 --> 00:28:38,029
ever look at it. It's brilliant. You have the

619
00:28:38,029 --> 00:28:41,289
setup. The pale corpse of a freshly executed

620
00:28:41,289 --> 00:28:43,930
criminal laid out on the table and the guild

621
00:28:43,930 --> 00:28:46,950
surgeons leaning in, their faces tight with concentration.

622
00:28:47,210 --> 00:28:49,829
And Shoma points out a historical detail regarding

623
00:28:49,829 --> 00:28:52,049
the room they're in that reframes the entire

624
00:28:52,049 --> 00:28:55,250
work. About the skeleton, right? Yes. In the

625
00:28:55,250 --> 00:28:57,210
light and anatomy theater where Rembrandt was

626
00:28:57,210 --> 00:28:59,289
educated and where this kind of public dissection

627
00:28:59,289 --> 00:29:02,089
would conceptually take place, there was always

628
00:29:02,089 --> 00:29:04,970
a mounted human skeleton holding a flag or a

629
00:29:04,970 --> 00:29:07,289
placard. Right. And written on that placard was

630
00:29:07,289 --> 00:29:10,990
a specific Latin motto, no se te ipsum. Know

631
00:29:10,990 --> 00:29:13,750
thyself. Know thyself. The core injunction of

632
00:29:13,750 --> 00:29:16,269
classical philosophy. Now look at how Rembrandt

633
00:29:16,269 --> 00:29:18,910
orchestrates the painting around that idea. Schama

634
00:29:18,910 --> 00:29:21,470
highlights this incredible, deliberate, almost

635
00:29:21,470 --> 00:29:24,210
poetic symmetry in the composition. It's hidden

636
00:29:24,210 --> 00:29:27,109
in plain sight. Exactly. Look at Dr. Tulp, the

637
00:29:27,109 --> 00:29:29,109
master physician. He has his left hand raised

638
00:29:29,109 --> 00:29:31,710
in the air, gesturing, explaining the mechanics

639
00:29:31,710 --> 00:29:33,970
of the arm to his colleagues. And with his right

640
00:29:33,970 --> 00:29:36,269
hand, he is gripping his metal surgical instrument,

641
00:29:36,450 --> 00:29:38,890
his forceps, and he is delving directly into

642
00:29:38,890 --> 00:29:41,029
the exposed tendons and muscles of the cadaver's

643
00:29:41,029 --> 00:29:44,009
arm. Now consider how Rembrandt himself is positioned

644
00:29:44,009 --> 00:29:48,250
as he paints this scene. This blew my mind. Rembrandt

645
00:29:48,250 --> 00:29:50,809
is standing at his easel. He has his left hand

646
00:29:50,809 --> 00:29:53,029
holding his wooden palette, mixing his colors.

647
00:29:53,150 --> 00:29:56,089
And with his right hand, he is gripping his tool,

648
00:29:56,210 --> 00:29:58,930
his brush, and delving directly into the canvas.

649
00:29:58,990 --> 00:30:01,349
The surgeon and the painter. The exact same posture.

650
00:30:01,490 --> 00:30:04,450
Yes. Skama is showing us that Rembrandt saw them

651
00:30:04,450 --> 00:30:07,990
as equals. Both are dissecting the human condition.

652
00:30:08,509 --> 00:30:11,450
Both are pursuing the profound truth of nocete

653
00:30:11,450 --> 00:30:14,400
ipsum. Man, that's powerful. Tulp is using his

654
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,940
forceps to reveal the incredible divine mechanics

655
00:30:16,940 --> 00:30:19,630
of the physical body. Rembrandt is using his

656
00:30:19,630 --> 00:30:21,829
brush to reveal the invisible mechanics of the

657
00:30:21,829 --> 00:30:24,509
human soul shining through the faces of the men

658
00:30:24,509 --> 00:30:26,710
watching the dissection. It is a painting about

659
00:30:26,710 --> 00:30:29,549
the deep metaphysical sympathy between the physical

660
00:30:29,549 --> 00:30:32,630
body and the immortal soul. Exactly. It argues

661
00:30:32,630 --> 00:30:35,069
that to truly see the physical world is to know

662
00:30:35,069 --> 00:30:37,670
the spiritual truth, both the husk of the body

663
00:30:37,670 --> 00:30:39,970
and the kernel of the spirit. But this intense

664
00:30:39,970 --> 00:30:42,430
connection between seeing physically and knowing

665
00:30:42,430 --> 00:30:45,150
spiritually brings us to what I think is the

666
00:30:45,150 --> 00:30:47,769
most powerful recurring thematic pattern in Shama's

667
00:30:47,769 --> 00:30:50,690
entire book. The contrast between physical sight

668
00:30:50,690 --> 00:30:53,130
and spiritual blindness. Yes. And to understand

669
00:30:53,130 --> 00:30:55,809
how deeply this permeated Rembrandt's worldview,

670
00:30:56,250 --> 00:31:00,549
Skama introduces us to a poem by Konstantin Hragens,

671
00:31:00,650 --> 00:31:03,289
the diplomat who discovered him. The poem is

672
00:31:03,289 --> 00:31:06,480
called Ugentrust, or Eye Bright. It is a remarkable,

673
00:31:06,619 --> 00:31:09,460
deeply philosophical piece of literature that

674
00:31:09,460 --> 00:31:12,059
perfectly captures the Dutch Calvinist mindset

675
00:31:12,059 --> 00:31:15,799
of the era. The title Ugentroost refers to a

676
00:31:15,799 --> 00:31:19,160
real physical herb, Euphrasia, which produces

677
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,920
a bright blue flower under the medieval doctrine

678
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:24,119
of signatures. Wait, sorry, what is the doctrine

679
00:31:24,119 --> 00:31:26,720
of signatures? Ah. It's the ancient botanical

680
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:28,799
and medical belief that a plant's physical appearance

681
00:31:28,799 --> 00:31:31,819
indicates its divinely intended medicinal use.

682
00:31:31,980 --> 00:31:34,700
Oh, I see. So because the Euphrasia flower supposedly

683
00:31:34,700 --> 00:31:37,279
looked like a blue eye, it was thought to cure

684
00:31:37,279 --> 00:31:39,839
the occlusion of vision. It was prescribed as

685
00:31:39,839 --> 00:31:42,740
a literal eye balm to cure physical blindness.

686
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:44,779
OK, that makes sense for medieval medicine. But

687
00:31:44,779 --> 00:31:47,640
Huygens in this poem completely flips the concept

688
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:49,940
on its head. He does. He is writing this long

689
00:31:49,940 --> 00:31:53,420
poem to console a female friend who is tragically

690
00:31:53,420 --> 00:31:56,180
losing her physical sight. But instead of just

691
00:31:56,180 --> 00:31:59,019
offering pity, he argues that her encroaching

692
00:31:59,019 --> 00:32:02,240
physical blindness is actually a profound divine

693
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,460
blessing. A blessing. Why? Because it cures her

694
00:32:05,460 --> 00:32:08,480
of what he calls the sorcery of sight. Huygens

695
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:11,380
argues that the world is completely full of the

696
00:32:11,380 --> 00:32:14,220
ranks of the blind. Millions of people walking

697
00:32:14,220 --> 00:32:17,400
around with perfect 2020 physical vision who

698
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,460
are completely, tragically blinded by the sins

699
00:32:20,460 --> 00:32:22,980
of the world. Blinded by what they see. Exactly.

700
00:32:23,039 --> 00:32:26,079
They are blinded by greed, by lust, by the false

701
00:32:26,079 --> 00:32:29,279
glitter of gold, by luxurious fabrics, and by

702
00:32:29,279 --> 00:32:31,460
the desperate need to keep up outward appearances.

703
00:32:31,779 --> 00:32:33,920
I love this because if you apply this to today,

704
00:32:34,180 --> 00:32:36,240
the sorcery of sight is basically Instagram.

705
00:32:36,539 --> 00:32:39,099
Oh, absolutely. It's the curated feeds, the filters,

706
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:41,660
the obsession with the aesthetic perfection of

707
00:32:41,660 --> 00:32:44,339
other people's lives that completely blinds us

708
00:32:44,339 --> 00:32:46,799
to reality. Huygens was calling out the 17th

709
00:32:46,799 --> 00:32:49,049
century version of that. Spot on. And crucially,

710
00:32:49,230 --> 00:32:51,210
Huygens argued that painters were the absolute

711
00:32:51,210 --> 00:32:53,910
worst offenders. He thought painters were guilty

712
00:32:53,910 --> 00:32:56,750
of this sorcery, presuming to ape God's creation,

713
00:32:57,069 --> 00:33:00,430
tricking the eye, and constantly valuing surface

714
00:33:00,430 --> 00:33:03,089
glitter over deep substance. It is a deeply neo

715
00:33:03,089 --> 00:33:06,789
-Stoic, Calvinist philosophy. The idea is that

716
00:33:06,789 --> 00:33:09,230
the partial or total loss of physical vision

717
00:33:09,230 --> 00:33:12,170
mercifully deprives you of the worldly allurements

718
00:33:12,170 --> 00:33:14,609
that provoke sin. If you can't see the gold,

719
00:33:14,730 --> 00:33:17,500
you won't covet it. Right. And Shama proves that

720
00:33:17,500 --> 00:33:20,500
Rembrandt internalizes this specific concept

721
00:33:20,500 --> 00:33:23,660
profoundly. It becomes the defining metaphor

722
00:33:23,660 --> 00:33:26,619
of his career. You see it manifest most violently

723
00:33:26,619 --> 00:33:29,920
in his staggering 1636 painting, The Blinding

724
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:32,559
of Samson. Which, incredibly, he gave to Huygens

725
00:33:32,559 --> 00:33:34,829
as a personal gift. He did. Think about that

726
00:33:34,829 --> 00:33:37,190
for a second. You paint one of the most brutal,

727
00:33:37,309 --> 00:33:40,470
visceral, gory scenes imaginable. Shammah describes

728
00:33:40,470 --> 00:33:43,089
it perfectly. Samson being wrestled to the ground

729
00:33:43,089 --> 00:33:45,569
by Philistine soldiers, his toes literally curling

730
00:33:45,569 --> 00:33:48,150
in excruciating agony, his teeth clenched in

731
00:33:48,150 --> 00:33:50,690
a rictus of sheer pain, while a soldier in armor

732
00:33:50,690 --> 00:33:52,970
literally drives a thick metal spike deep into

733
00:33:52,970 --> 00:33:55,450
his eye, causing blood to spurt out. It is horrific.

734
00:33:55,630 --> 00:33:57,930
And Rembrandt wraps this up and gives it to his

735
00:33:57,930 --> 00:34:00,549
friend Huygens. Why on earth would you give that

736
00:34:00,549 --> 00:34:02,109
to a friend? Because Huygens would understand

737
00:34:02,109 --> 00:34:04,309
exactly what it meant. It wasn't just a butchery

738
00:34:04,309 --> 00:34:07,470
drama meant to shock. For Huygens and Rembrandt,

739
00:34:07,470 --> 00:34:10,889
it was a profound scene of redemptive immolation.

740
00:34:11,190 --> 00:34:13,829
Redemptive? Yes. It portrays the exact horrific

741
00:34:13,829 --> 00:34:17,289
moment. A tragic hero pays the ultimate price

742
00:34:17,289 --> 00:34:20,409
for his massive hubris, his vanity, and his sins

743
00:34:20,409 --> 00:34:22,969
of the flesh with Delilah. Samson's physical

744
00:34:22,969 --> 00:34:25,710
strength and his moral blindness were his undoing.

745
00:34:25,750 --> 00:34:27,909
So the painting argues that only by having his

746
00:34:27,909 --> 00:34:30,469
physical eyes violently, painfully destroyed,

747
00:34:30,610 --> 00:34:34,050
can Samson at long last begin to see the spiritual

748
00:34:34,050 --> 00:34:36,329
truth of his relationship with God. Exactly.

749
00:34:36,329 --> 00:34:38,510
The loss of the physical eye is the birth of

750
00:34:38,510 --> 00:34:41,050
the spiritual eye. That distinction between outward

751
00:34:41,050 --> 00:34:43,590
superficial sight and inward profound vision

752
00:34:43,590 --> 00:34:46,449
shows up constantly in Rembrandt's revolutionary

753
00:34:46,449 --> 00:34:49,510
handling of light. Schama points us to an early

754
00:34:49,510 --> 00:34:52,710
masterpiece, The Supper at Emmaus from 1628.

755
00:34:52,929 --> 00:34:55,389
Oh, stunning work. This is the biblical moment

756
00:34:55,389 --> 00:34:57,809
the resurrected Christ reveals his true identity

757
00:34:57,809 --> 00:35:01,190
to his disciples at an inn. And Rembrandt uses

758
00:35:01,190 --> 00:35:04,949
extreme chiaroscuro heavy, blocking shadow, and

759
00:35:04,949 --> 00:35:07,760
piercing light. But the light isn't just a technical

760
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:09,900
trick to show off his skill. No, the light is

761
00:35:09,900 --> 00:35:12,239
the theological subject. Look at how he paints

762
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:15,000
Christ. Christ is actually seen almost entirely

763
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:17,699
in dark silhouette. The physical light source,

764
00:35:17,980 --> 00:35:21,039
a candle or a lamp, is hidden completely behind

765
00:35:21,039 --> 00:35:23,599
Christ's head. Right. The light is radiating

766
00:35:23,599 --> 00:35:26,059
outward from behind him, acting as a metaphor

767
00:35:26,059 --> 00:35:28,579
for the blinding, overwhelming light of the gospel

768
00:35:28,579 --> 00:35:30,650
itself. And then look at the disciple sitting

769
00:35:30,650 --> 00:35:32,670
across the table who is receiving this revelation.

770
00:35:33,150 --> 00:35:36,110
His reaction isn't some serene, pious Italian

771
00:35:36,110 --> 00:35:38,590
Renaissance gaze. Not at all. Scammon points

772
00:35:38,590 --> 00:35:40,670
out that the disciple's eyes are popped completely

773
00:35:40,670 --> 00:35:43,210
out of his head, almost lizard -like. His pupils

774
00:35:43,210 --> 00:35:45,670
are contracted to tiny pinholes against the sudden,

775
00:35:45,789 --> 00:35:49,030
blinding shock of the revelation. Wow. The fragile,

776
00:35:49,070 --> 00:35:51,730
physical eye is completely overwhelmed by the

777
00:35:51,730 --> 00:35:54,809
crushing weight of spiritual truth. And we see

778
00:35:54,809 --> 00:35:57,250
the gentler yet equally profound side of this

779
00:35:57,250 --> 00:35:59,510
theme in his etchings of the blind patriarch,

780
00:35:59,809 --> 00:36:03,730
Tobit, specifically Toget and Anna. Yes. Tobit

781
00:36:03,730 --> 00:36:06,550
is blind, waiting for his son to return. He hears

782
00:36:06,550 --> 00:36:09,690
a noise and he rushes to the door. But Rembrandt...

783
00:36:09,889 --> 00:36:12,429
Unlike other artists who might idealize the poem,

784
00:36:12,630 --> 00:36:15,090
doesn't show the blind man walking gracefully

785
00:36:15,090 --> 00:36:18,070
or heroically. He shows reality. He shows Tobit

786
00:36:18,070 --> 00:36:21,349
fumbling, off balance. Tobit is moving not toward

787
00:36:21,349 --> 00:36:24,409
the actual open door, but directly into a collision

788
00:36:24,409 --> 00:36:27,230
with his own shadow, feeling his way toward the

789
00:36:27,230 --> 00:36:29,849
light he cannot physically see. It is awkward.

790
00:36:29,909 --> 00:36:32,650
It is incredibly vulnerable. But it is moving

791
00:36:32,650 --> 00:36:35,659
with absolute spiritual purpose. because as Shama

792
00:36:35,659 --> 00:36:38,340
writes, he is moving entirely by an inner compass.

793
00:36:38,619 --> 00:36:41,059
The Dutch had a specific beautiful term for this

794
00:36:41,059 --> 00:36:44,179
that Shama highlights. Beninwardseen. Beninwardseen.

795
00:36:44,380 --> 00:36:46,559
True vision requires turning away from the false

796
00:36:46,559 --> 00:36:48,880
theatrical glitter of the world, essentially

797
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:50,980
closing the shutters on the physical eyes and

798
00:36:50,980 --> 00:36:53,420
looking inward to the soul. Which, tragically

799
00:36:53,420 --> 00:36:55,480
and beautifully, is exactly what Rembrandt is

800
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:58,179
forced to do in his own life as his outward circumstances

801
00:36:58,179 --> 00:37:01,119
begin to violently unravel. This is the hard

802
00:37:01,119 --> 00:37:03,349
part of the story. It is. This brings us to the

803
00:37:03,349 --> 00:37:05,909
great turning point in Shama's narrative. Everything

804
00:37:05,909 --> 00:37:10,449
changes for him around the year 1642. 1642. This

805
00:37:10,449 --> 00:37:12,510
is the year he paints the Night Watch, which

806
00:37:12,510 --> 00:37:15,369
is arguably his most famous public monumental

807
00:37:15,369 --> 00:37:19,670
triumph. It secures his legacy. At the exact

808
00:37:19,670 --> 00:37:22,630
same time. Simultaneously, 1642 is the year his

809
00:37:22,630 --> 00:37:26,260
beloved wife, Saskia, dies. And the personal

810
00:37:26,260 --> 00:37:28,480
and financial ruin that follows over the next

811
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:31,860
decade is so complete, so devastating, that Shama

812
00:37:31,860 --> 00:37:33,940
notes Rembrandt is eventually forced to sell

813
00:37:33,940 --> 00:37:37,019
Sosuke's actual grave just to raise cash. It's

814
00:37:37,019 --> 00:37:39,219
hard to even fathom. Just let that sink in for

815
00:37:39,219 --> 00:37:41,139
a moment. If you're listening, imagine the pain

816
00:37:41,139 --> 00:37:44,159
of that, to sell your wife's grave. It is a devastating

817
00:37:44,159 --> 00:37:47,019
fall from grace. He enters a highly chaotic,

818
00:37:47,199 --> 00:37:49,920
disastrous relationship with Gertie Dirks, a

819
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:52,719
bugler's widow who was hired as his infant son's

820
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,150
dry nurse. Right. That relationship ends in bitter

821
00:37:55,150 --> 00:37:57,630
legal disputes, with Rembrandt actually having

822
00:37:57,630 --> 00:37:59,489
her committed to a house of correction. It gets

823
00:37:59,489 --> 00:38:02,849
really messy. Very messy. His spending habits,

824
00:38:03,050 --> 00:38:05,449
combined with changing artistic tastes and economic

825
00:38:05,449 --> 00:38:09,469
downturns, catch up to him. And by 1656, the

826
00:38:09,469 --> 00:38:11,949
man who was once the most famous wealthy painter

827
00:38:11,949 --> 00:38:15,030
in Amsterdam is legally declaring sessio bonorum.

828
00:38:15,380 --> 00:38:17,880
A form of bankruptcy. A form of bankruptcy to

829
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,940
avoid outright betters prison. All of his collections,

830
00:38:21,099 --> 00:38:24,280
his props, his folios are auctioned off for pennies.

831
00:38:24,340 --> 00:38:26,480
But here is the incredible thing scam attracts.

832
00:38:27,409 --> 00:38:30,110
As his outward circumstances completely collapse,

833
00:38:30,369 --> 00:38:33,730
as his wealth and status vanish, his art undergoes

834
00:38:33,730 --> 00:38:36,150
a radical miraculous transformation. A complete

835
00:38:36,150 --> 00:38:38,650
rebirth. He turns definitively away from the

836
00:38:38,650 --> 00:38:41,489
dazzling, highly finished, smooth exteriors of

837
00:38:41,489 --> 00:38:45,050
the 1630s society portraits. For an entire decade,

838
00:38:45,190 --> 00:38:47,349
he basically stops painting lucrative society

839
00:38:47,349 --> 00:38:50,570
likenesses altogether. Instead, he begins mapping

840
00:38:50,570 --> 00:38:53,309
the deep interior of things. He trades the extroverted

841
00:38:53,309 --> 00:38:56,190
stagecraft for profound introversion. You look

842
00:38:56,190 --> 00:38:58,550
at late masterpieces, Kama analyzes like The

843
00:38:58,550 --> 00:39:00,769
Jewish Bride or the incredibly tender oil sketch

844
00:39:00,769 --> 00:39:02,949
of Abraham serving the three angels. So different

845
00:39:02,949 --> 00:39:05,369
from his early work. Completely different. The

846
00:39:05,369 --> 00:39:07,610
overwhelming emotional power of these late works

847
00:39:07,610 --> 00:39:10,389
doesn't come from Baroque theatricality. There

848
00:39:10,389 --> 00:39:13,190
are no twisting bodies, no screaming faces. That

849
00:39:13,190 --> 00:39:15,969
power comes from an intense, almost physically

850
00:39:15,969 --> 00:39:19,070
heavy stillness. He takes the quiet intimacy

851
00:39:19,070 --> 00:39:22,489
of Dutch domestic genre painting people just

852
00:39:22,489 --> 00:39:25,059
sharing a simple meal. Or a couple sharing a

853
00:39:25,059 --> 00:39:27,820
quiet, private moment of touch. And he imports

854
00:39:27,820 --> 00:39:30,880
that profound stillness into these massive, weighty,

855
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:33,780
sacred histories. But the tragedy of his career,

856
00:39:33,860 --> 00:39:36,590
which Shama outlines, is that... The society

857
00:39:36,590 --> 00:39:38,969
around him didn't want inward stillness. No,

858
00:39:39,070 --> 00:39:41,250
they had moved on. The wealthy burghers and the

859
00:39:41,250 --> 00:39:44,389
aristocracy wanted the new, smooth, polished,

860
00:39:44,590 --> 00:39:46,710
classical style that was rapidly coming into

861
00:39:46,710 --> 00:39:49,130
fashion from France. They wanted elegance, not

862
00:39:49,130 --> 00:39:51,369
muddy, rough psychology. And we see the ultimate

863
00:39:51,369 --> 00:39:54,369
stinging rejection of Rembrandt's late style

864
00:39:54,369 --> 00:39:56,610
in the massive commission for the Orange is All

865
00:39:56,610 --> 00:39:59,269
at the Seystein Bosch Palace. Right. This is

866
00:39:59,269 --> 00:40:01,960
a heartbreaking moment. The Dowager Princess,

867
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,460
Amalia Van Salms, is building this massive, glorious

868
00:40:05,460 --> 00:40:08,679
monument to honor her late husband, the stadtholder

869
00:40:08,679 --> 00:40:11,800
Frederick Hendrik. It is without question the

870
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:14,360
biggest, most prestigious, most lucrative artistic

871
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,280
commission of the era in the Netherlands. Everyone,

872
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:20,420
who is anyone, is brought in to paint a panel.

873
00:40:20,579 --> 00:40:22,780
And Rembrandt, the former star of the Dutch art

874
00:40:22,780 --> 00:40:25,420
world, is conspicuously, deliberately left off

875
00:40:25,420 --> 00:40:28,400
the list. He gets nothing. Nothing. They hire

876
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:31,320
elegant Flemish painters. They hire smooth Dutch

877
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:34,739
classicists. And to add the absolute ultimate

878
00:40:34,739 --> 00:40:37,380
insult to injury. They hire his old Leiden rival,

879
00:40:37,599 --> 00:40:39,840
Jan Levens. Who had successfully adapted his

880
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,079
style to be exactly what the court wanted. It

881
00:40:42,079 --> 00:40:44,579
is a stark indicator of how completely out of

882
00:40:44,579 --> 00:40:46,920
step Rembrandt had become with the glittering,

883
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:49,679
polished tastes of the ruling elite. He was obsolete

884
00:40:49,679 --> 00:40:51,699
in his own lifetime. But what does he do? Does

885
00:40:51,699 --> 00:40:53,980
he compromise? Does he try to paint smooth, pretty

886
00:40:53,980 --> 00:40:56,719
pictures to win back the market? No. He doubles

887
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,320
down. He leans in even harder. He pushes further

888
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:02,039
into what art historians call his rough or broad

889
00:41:02,039 --> 00:41:05,800
style of the 1660s. And honestly, reading Shama

890
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:07,900
describe this paint, rough feels like a totally

891
00:41:07,900 --> 00:41:09,780
inadequate word. It's visionary. It's almost

892
00:41:09,780 --> 00:41:13,280
sculptural. He is mixing these creamy, smooth,

893
00:41:13,420 --> 00:41:16,039
delicate passages for a face and immediately

894
00:41:16,039 --> 00:41:19,420
juxtaposing them with incredibly violent, thick,

895
00:41:19,579 --> 00:41:22,230
heavily worked breaststrokes. for a sleeve or

896
00:41:22,230 --> 00:41:24,570
a background. Yeah. He is using a stiff palette

897
00:41:24,570 --> 00:41:27,130
knife. He is using the wooden handle of the brush.

898
00:41:27,449 --> 00:41:31,010
He is literally using his bare fingers to smear

899
00:41:31,010 --> 00:41:33,389
and build the physical texture of the paint until

900
00:41:33,389 --> 00:41:35,650
it stands off the canvas and casts its own shadows.

901
00:41:35,869 --> 00:41:39,269
It was so revolutionary, so dark, and so aggressively

902
00:41:39,269 --> 00:41:42,269
physical that it deeply confused many of his

903
00:41:42,269 --> 00:41:44,050
contemporaries. They thought he had lost his

904
00:41:44,050 --> 00:41:46,329
mind or his eyesight. But Shama points out that

905
00:41:46,329 --> 00:41:48,829
not all of them missed the genius. True. There

906
00:41:48,829 --> 00:41:51,570
is a wonderful validating detail about an aristocratic

907
00:41:51,570 --> 00:41:55,090
Italian patron named Rufo. Rufo lived in Sicily

908
00:41:55,090 --> 00:41:57,610
and commissioned a painting from Rembrandt, the

909
00:41:57,610 --> 00:42:00,690
famous, deeply melancholic Aristotle contemplating

910
00:42:00,690 --> 00:42:02,590
the bust of Homer. And Rufo loved it, right?

911
00:42:02,750 --> 00:42:06,050
Rufo loved it. So Rufo then commissioned a companion

912
00:42:06,050 --> 00:42:08,789
piece to hang next to it from the highly respected

913
00:42:08,789 --> 00:42:11,559
Italian master Gricino. And what does Gracchino

914
00:42:11,559 --> 00:42:14,000
do when he is told his painting will hang next

915
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:16,880
to a new work by Rembrandt? He panics, essentially.

916
00:42:17,179 --> 00:42:19,260
He completely panics. He realizes his current

917
00:42:19,260 --> 00:42:23,599
bright classical style will look completely frivolous

918
00:42:23,599 --> 00:42:25,960
next to the massive psychological weight of Rembrandt's

919
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,579
canvas. So Gracchino actually reverts. He abandons

920
00:42:29,579 --> 00:42:32,159
his modern style and paints the commission in

921
00:42:32,159 --> 00:42:35,619
an older, darker, much more chiaroscuro heavy

922
00:42:35,619 --> 00:42:38,280
style from his own youth. just so his painting

923
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:40,519
won't look completely embarrassed and out of

924
00:42:40,519 --> 00:42:43,219
place, hanging next to Rembrandt's radical late

925
00:42:43,219 --> 00:42:46,119
work. The celebrated Italian master had to bend

926
00:42:46,119 --> 00:42:48,679
his entire style to adapt to the ruined Dutchman.

927
00:42:48,780 --> 00:42:51,099
I love that so much. It proves the sheer gravitational

928
00:42:51,099 --> 00:42:53,920
pull of Rembrandt's genius, even when his own

929
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,619
pantry was ignoring him. Which forces us to ask,

930
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,739
what does this entire trajectory mean? Consider

931
00:42:59,739 --> 00:43:02,460
the immense tragic irony here that Shama has

932
00:43:02,460 --> 00:43:05,429
guided us through. Rembrandt achieves his greatest,

933
00:43:05,650 --> 00:43:08,250
most profound artistic breakthroughs, the very

934
00:43:08,250 --> 00:43:10,650
paintings that stop us in our tracks and move

935
00:43:10,650 --> 00:43:13,809
us to tears in museums today at the exact historical

936
00:43:13,809 --> 00:43:16,489
moment that his society decides his style is

937
00:43:16,489 --> 00:43:19,630
ugly, unrefined, and obsolete. It's the ultimate

938
00:43:19,630 --> 00:43:21,949
paradox. He loses the world. He loses his money,

939
00:43:22,010 --> 00:43:24,750
his house, his wife, his societal standing. But

940
00:43:24,750 --> 00:43:27,599
in losing the world, he finally... perfectly

941
00:43:27,599 --> 00:43:30,599
captures the soul. He trades the seductive sorcery

942
00:43:30,599 --> 00:43:32,980
of sight for the profound truth of Binnenwart's

943
00:43:32,980 --> 00:43:35,659
zine. And that brings us to the end of our journey

944
00:43:35,659 --> 00:43:38,340
through Shama's incredible text. We've traced

945
00:43:38,340 --> 00:43:40,940
this massive, turbulent arc. We started with

946
00:43:40,940 --> 00:43:43,219
the ambitious, highly educated young man in light

947
00:43:43,219 --> 00:43:45,340
and grinding dead colors, fiercely trying to

948
00:43:45,340 --> 00:43:48,280
beat Jan Liebens and obsessively imitating the

949
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,840
theatrical aristocratic grandeur of Rubens. We

950
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:53,019
watched him conquer Amsterdam by revolutionizing

951
00:43:53,019 --> 00:43:55,340
the portrait, anatomizing both the flesh of the

952
00:43:55,340 --> 00:43:57,880
cadaver and the spirit of the surgeon. And finally,

953
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:00,079
we watched him lose absolutely everything only

954
00:44:00,079 --> 00:44:03,099
to throw off all the rules of his era and paint

955
00:44:03,099 --> 00:44:06,360
the bare, rough, physical, emotional truth of

956
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,900
the human condition using his bare hands. You

957
00:44:08,900 --> 00:44:10,789
systematically... stripped away the masks yeah

958
00:44:10,789 --> 00:44:12,730
he stripped them away in his own life and he

959
00:44:12,730 --> 00:44:14,969
stripped them away on his canvases leaving nothing

960
00:44:14,969 --> 00:44:17,070
but the absolute quiddity of the human being

961
00:44:17,070 --> 00:44:19,110
and that leaves us with a final thought for you

962
00:44:19,110 --> 00:44:21,929
to mull over today building on Huygens's concept

963
00:44:21,929 --> 00:44:25,309
of Binnenwart's zine we live in a world right

964
00:44:25,309 --> 00:44:28,309
now that is arguably more saturated by the sorcery

965
00:44:28,309 --> 00:44:30,929
of sight than any era in human history without

966
00:44:30,929 --> 00:44:33,769
a doubt we are constantly bombarded by glowing

967
00:44:33,769 --> 00:44:38,050
screens by heavily curated statuses by the glittering

968
00:44:38,050 --> 00:44:40,590
filtered outward appearances of everyone around

969
00:44:40,590 --> 00:44:43,289
us we are constantly pressured to measure up

970
00:44:43,289 --> 00:44:45,550
to put on the exact right mask just like we talked

971
00:44:45,550 --> 00:44:47,230
about at the very beginning of this deep dive

972
00:44:47,230 --> 00:44:49,610
yeah but what if we took a cue from the blind

973
00:44:49,610 --> 00:44:52,829
fumbling toe bit or the ruined bankrupt brilliant

974
00:44:52,829 --> 00:44:55,969
rembrandt what profound truths about ourselves

975
00:44:55,969 --> 00:44:57,809
about the people we love and about the weight

976
00:44:57,809 --> 00:44:59,889
of our own life might we only be able to clearly

977
00:44:59,889 --> 00:45:02,570
understand if we metaphorically closed our eyes

978
00:45:02,570 --> 00:45:05,389
to the world's expectations, turned off the blinding

979
00:45:05,389 --> 00:45:07,409
glare of the stage lights and dared to look inward

980
00:45:07,409 --> 00:45:07,789
instead.