Rembrandt: Drawings & Paintings (Annotated)

Rembrandt van Rhein is considered one of the greatest artists in the history of art and the most significant painter and etcher in Dutch art history. Rembrandt never went abroad but was significantly influenced by the work of Italian masters and Dutch artists who studied in Italy. Having achieved great success as a portrait artist in his young years, his later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial difficulties.
His works include a wide range of styles and themes, from portraits and self-portraits to landscapes, genre scenes, allegorical and historical scenes, biblical and mythological subjects, and animal sketches. Rembrandt's portraits of his contemporaries, his self-portraits, and illustrations of scenes from the Bible are considered to be his greatest creative triumphs.
His self-portraits show us a unique and intimate biography in which the artist is studied without vanity and with the utmost sincerity. His most significant contribution in the history of graphics is the transformation of the etching process from a relatively new reproductive technique into a pure art form. His reputation as the greatest master in the history of the media has never been questioned. His images on the Bible were backed by Rembrandt's knowledge of the particular text, his assimilation of the classics, and his passage through the prism of his observations from the life of the Jewish population in Amsterdam. Rembrandt has produced over 600 paintings, nearly 400 engravings and 2000 oil paintings.