Rembrandt: Portrait of the artist as a young Mennonite?

• Published in: Canadian Mennonite (Waterloo) Vol. 10; no. 24; p. 32
• Main Author: Visser, Piet
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Waterloo Mennonite Publishing Service 18.12.2006
• Subjects: Mennonite churches; Personal profiles; Religious history; Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669); Visual artists
• ISSN: 1480-042X

As early as 1906, these opinions were promoted by some Dutch Mennonite pastors and historians. In a still relevant article in the July 1953 Mennonite Quarterly Review, Harold Bender reflects his awareness of the ambiguity of the topic, expressing both his scholarly hesitation and pastoral enthusiasm: "It has sometimes been asserted that the greatest of all Dutch painters, Rembrandt van Rijn...was a Mennonite... However, the best and most recent scholarship hesitates to claim this with finality... [But] in any case Rembrandt's religion was in its deepest essence Mennonite, formed by Mennonite influences, and his essential spirit and expression were Mennonite in character." During this period, Rembrandt was not only lodged in the Uylenburgh house but he also entered the Uylenburgh firm as both an independent painter and as the head of Uylenburgh's painting school. Supervised by Rembrandt, young painters were trained as apprentices to produce paintings on demand, while the art dealer also acted as Rembrandt's private commissioner. As soon as Rembrandt left the Uylenburgh business in 1635, it was a Mennonite artist who became his successor as head of the painter's academy. Govert Flinck arrived in the Uylenburgh workshop in 1633, where he completed his apprenticeship under Rembrandt. The effects of Rembrandt's lessons are evident in several of Flinck's early works, and soon Flinck became Rembrandt's most serious competitor, gaining far more commissions than Rembrandt, whose shadowy style and his conduct were becoming the subject of criticism.