Lecture 4: The Night Watch: Rembrandt, Group Portraiture, and Dutch History

The Night Watch (1642): Rembrandt, Group Portraiture, and Dutch History
Rembrandt van Rijn’s painting The Night Watch is the centerpiece and climax of the recent reinstallation at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and for good reason: it shows Rembrandt at his most inventive, ambitious, and idealistic. The painting gives heartfelt life and power to a traditional formula for portraiture. To reach a deeper understanding of the work, Walsh looks at it in the context of what the artist’s clients might have expected