The Night Watch revisited
Practically
all art historians in the world who are familiar with the baroque period and the
works of Rembrandt in particular, are aware of the fact that the famous
masterpiece of Rembrandt known as the Night Watch has been trimmed on all sides.
Especially on the left side of the painting where a section of 70 cm has been
sliced off, in order to let the canvas fit into a space between two doors.
Luckily the main part of the huge painting measuring now 363 x 437 cm remained
unharmed and survived a time span of 289 years. However reduced in size the
Night Watch can still be admired by the visitors of the Rijksmuseum today. The
composition of the painting regrettably has been partially destroyed
in such a way, that two grown up persons seen en profil and the
face of a child just looking straight at the beholder over the parapet on which
the sergeant Reynier Engelen is seated are lost for ever due to the truncation in 1715 on the left side.
The
painting is a group portrait of the Amsterdam civic-guard militia, who gave
Rembrandt the commission in 1642 having themselves portrayed fully dressed in
glamorous fantasy outfit, in a
theatrical pose. After its completion the Night Watch was hung in the
civic-guard militia conference room adorned with the group portraits of the
militia upper class members. Thereafter the painting has been relocated several
times, and during the stay in the town hall of Amsterdam (now the Royal Palace)
the tragic event of the trimming took place (1715). Thanks to good fortune a
small scale copy of the composition in its entirety survived. The exactitude and
the reliability of the copy can be checked by comparing the small scale copy by
Lundens with the remaining painting by Rembrandt still depicting 31 persons. The
comparison of the copy with the original Night Watch proves that the
representation depicted in this copy and the original Night Watch are pretty
much identical, in such a way that a meticulous restoration based on this very
important and precious copy is thinkable.
The
proposal of the artist Alfred Eikelenboom is exactly to put this into practice.
He is considering the idea of the undertaking of the restoration as the product
of his (AE) mind and therefore as a conceptual work of art. Everybody who is
interested in the art of Rembrandt and in the magic masterpiece of Rembrandt,
the Night Watch in particular should read
ISBN
904009554 x
Rijksmuseum
Dossiers
Waanders
2002.
In this
attractive and well-documented publication, argumentation and motivation for a
total and definitive restoration of the Night Watch can be found.
Alfred
Eikelenboom evaluated his arguments and motivation in a A4 booklet of very
limited edition to contact scholars students and art lovers.
A
publication about the restoration of the Night Watch in which the motives and
arguments are evaluated is an option.
Hopefully
the reconstruction of the Night Watch will actually take place either to
celebrate the four hundred year jubilee of Rembrandt’s birthday 15 July 2006
or at the reopening of the restored and renewed Rijksmuseum in 2013(?).