Artistic examination of elements belonging to the Eastern world in Rembrandt’s paintings

Abstract

Baroque, a term used by art historians to describe the period after Mannerism and before Rococo, first appeared in Italy when looking at its historical process, and then spread to European cities such as France, Spain and the Netherlands and influenced many artists living in these countries. One of these artists was the Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. Although when Rembrandt is mentioned, the artist’s iconic works such as “The Night Watch” come to mind first, it is noteworthy that the artist constructs many of his paintings through the Eastern world. In this context, the fact that Amsterdam became the center of international trade in the XVII century and thus many Oriental products from Eastern countries reached the Netherlands left a deep mark on Rembrandt along with many of his contemporaries. Throughout his career, Rembrandt meticulously depicted these elements in his works of oil paintings, patterns and engravings, in which he dealt with the portraits he worked on the most and the
events mentioned in the Bible, thus, he gave his works a mystical Eastern atmosphere and constructed a different
world by connecting with the East in his paintings. This connection that the artist has established with the Eastern
world is rather than the depictions that his contemporaries and some painters who came after him dealt with from
the fantasy point of view, it differed due to the East’s efforts to remain faithful to its original. Within the scope of this article, information was given about the characteristic feature of the painting art of the Baroque period and the
Dutch Golden Age respectively, in the remaining parts of the research, Rembrandt’s works inspired by the Eastern
world were compiled and examined. Thus, it has been tried to look at the art of the period by opening a different window specifically for Rembrandt and the Eastern world.