The Night Watch
The Painting
The Night Watch or The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq (Dutch: De Nachtwacht) is the common name of one of the most famous works by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn.
The painting may be more properly titled The Company of captain Frans Banning Cocq and lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch preparing to march out. The Night Watch is one of the most famous paintings in the world.
The painting is renowned for three elements: its colossal size (363 x 437 cm ~ 11 ft 10in x 14 ft 4in), the effective use of light and shadow (chiaroscuro), and the perception of motion in what would have been, traditionally, a static military portrait.
With effective use of sunlight and shade, Rembrandt leads the eye to the three most important characters among the crowd, the two gentlemen in the centre (from whom the painting gets its original title), and the small girl in the centre left background. Behind them the company's colours are carried by the ensign, Jan Visscher Cornelissen.
The Artist
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (Dutch: 15 July 1606[1] – 4 October 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history.
His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age when Dutch Golden Age painting was extremely prolific and innovative.
Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his reputation as an artist remained high. Rembrandt's greatest creative triumphs are exemplified especially in his portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible.
In his paintings and prints he exhibited knowledge of classical iconography. Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called "one of the great prophets of civilization."