Why everyone loves Rembrandt

Talking of Rembrandt’s ‘The Jewish Bride’ to a friend, Vincent van Gogh went — characteristically — over the top. ‘I should be happy to give ten years of my life,’ he exclaimed, ‘if I could go on sitting here in front of this picture for a fortnight, with only a crust of dry bread for food.’ Without undergoing such rigours, visitors to Rembrandt: the Late Works at the National Gallery next month will be able to see the picture that drove Vincent to such a paroxysm of enthusiasm, along with many other masterpieces from the artist’s last years.

It may be that in recent decades other 17th-century masters — Caravaggio and Vermeer, in particular — have toppled Rembrandt from first place in the affections of the general public, but the same is not true, in my experience, of artists. Van Gogh was not alone in his fervour. Recently, for example, David Hockney had this to say of Rembrandt: ‘I think he was the greatest of all draughtsmen.