Art Appreciation Wednesdays!

    This is Rembrandt's Parable of the Rich Fool, a painting that made a lasting impression on me 50 years ago.  Of course it's true that any painting by Rembrandt is frickin' fantastic.  But to me, this one's in a class by itself.

    First of all, it's a portrait; and a fine one at that.  There is depth to the man's face, and you'd recognize him if he passed you on the street.

    Then there's the background - his amassed riches.  Everything, including individual pages, in splendid detail.

    But it's the candlelight that lifts this painting to its lofty status.  Everything it touches has to be re-shaded (re-lightened, actually) in gradients to maintain the painting's realism.

    And what impressed me as a kid is/was the man's right hand.  The book I was looking at  half-century ago blew that small portion of the picture up many times to show the attention Rembrandt gave to it's detail.  Light diffusing through skin.  Renaissance Perfection.