Rembrandt

In the YouTube film "Simon Schama’s Rembrandt- Part One" it talks about Amsterdam in the 1600's and the way of life in that area at that time.  Explaining how Amsterdam went from a small fishing port to a economic capital of the world.  Not only did they speak about the city but also of the one of a kind artist, Rembrandt.  He was truly, a remarkable artist that had the gift of making us feel emotion in his painting and portraying it like the world has never seen before. In one piece he paints a fur merchant known as Nicolaes Ruts, who sold Russian sable fur.  In the painting of him he showed Nicolaes dressed in his own product, with the fur painted with great detail, very sharp eyes  and a neatly groomed beard and a glare in his eyes as if he was being bothered by someone stopping him.  Fascinating enough he was able to depict the the mans' need for rest or the lack of rest he gets by always working, by painting slight pink inside of his eyes as if he had been up all night working. This painting is known as the business man's hero, probably because of Rembrandt's beautiful display of the man's work effort through the painting.  However he was able to show other emotions and features through his work, such as the painting of the 83 year old women.  He managed to show a great deal of worry and weakness in very subtle ways that spoke volumes.  In this painting it depicts an 83 year old women with a look in her eye that isn't very focused and drifting elsewhere as if she had other things on her mind.  The droopy eyebrows show worry and concern about something that give her a sense of weakness or vulnerability.  The magnitude of detail in his paintings helped him express so many emotions or conflicts so personally that it touched people.  In his variation of Sampson an Delilah, instead of the more common way to paint this picture which was usually to show Sampson as a nude hulking man.  Rembrandt decided to depict Sampson much smaller and realistic, to give him a sense of vulnerability, while showing Delilah caressing Sampson with one hand and lifting his hair with the other.  What that very small gesture showed was the epitome of the story, love and betrayal.  Rembrandt was indeed one of a kind, and the level of detail he used was insanely genius, along with his mastery of light and shadows, it made him an extraordinary artist that embodied the Baroque period of art completely.