MA Sze Man (Joyce) talks on Rembrandt's A Studio With a Seated Female

 

1)    INTRODUCE THE DRAWING IN GENERAL TERMS 

•What is the title of the drawing? What is the name of the artist? What is the year the drawing was done?
This is a drawing of Rembrandt Van Rijn, he was a famous painter in Baroque period. This drawing is called A Studio With a Seated Model, this was executed around 1654-1660.
 

•What is the medium? (ie the materials used to produce the picture, for example charcoal on paper, pen and ink etc)
The medium are pen and brush and brown ink and wash.
 

•What is the subject matter or general theme of the work? (eg is it a figure drawing, a map, a portrait, an autobiographical work, a picture about nature, a drawing of the city etc?)
This drawing is a figure drawing sketch (life-sketching), its subject matter is mainly about a human body, it expressed an organic pose and form of human body, so a female model sat in the studio. 

•What is the purpose of the drawing? (eg Is it a diagram that explains how something works? Does it record accurately record the appearance of something? Does it express the artist's emotion or memory? )
Rembrandt treated this sketch as a means of practicing the drawing skills and recording his visual observation, and tried to understand the characteristics of the back of human. And he tried to use only few lines to express the shapes of body, eg, the model’s arms, back and thigh.
Besides, he tried to use and mix with different medium to compose different texture and contrasts, eg. brush and wash are used to draw the light contrast of the wall, pen and ink to draw the outline of the female.

2) DESCRIBE THE DRAWING IN DETAIL

•How is line used? What does it do/express?
Rembrandt used few sharp and discontinuous strokes to outline the woman’s body shape, her face, hair, and the wrinkles of cushion.

•How is tone used? What does it do/express?
The gradation of tone of the top right side was filled up with the brush stroke from darker to lighter (from the top right to bottom), so we could see very clear of the contrast of the light, and where the light source was. In the bottom of this drawing, the dark tone expressed the shadow of the woman and the chair. The tone of the cushion was shaped by lines on the top and darker bush stroke at the bottom, so the top of the cushion was brighter and lighter than the bottom. We could see that Rembrandt tried to use the contour lines and wrinkles to reveal the form and structure, which make us feel the softness of the cushion.
And tone was used to depict the back bone(the line of her back) of the woman, because we could see there was a shade (a brush wash) in the middle vertically of her back and hip, and this tone also showed her sitting pose. She is in a diagonal post.

 
•What can you say about shape and/or form in this picture? What is the effect?
The broken lines which outline from the woman’s waist and upper right arm show us the boundary of the body and the walls. If there is no line, we will easily mix up the walls and the body, because they are filled with no color, so Rembrandt only used few lines to separate the difference nicely. He used the dark and light color, lines and pressured stoke carefully to express the three dimension of each object, eg, the cushion, the lower back of woman, the edge of the walls on the top left side. Besides, the pen stroke of shaping her body which make us could feel thhat her body is fleshy.

•Is texture a feature of the drawing?
Yes. For the chair legs, the graduation of tone creates a wooden texture. The strong pressure of the small lines in the middle of the cushion creates a texture of crumples, and we can feel it is quite smooth and soft. The little wavy brush stroke on the woman’s head creates a feeling of wavy hair. 

•What can you say about the composition of the drawing? What is the effect of this type of composition on the overall drawing?
The woman sat stably in the middle of this drawing. And the pose of her left arm and right leg were supporting her whold body, we could feel the force from her pose.

•Is rhythm important in this picture? If so, say more about it...
No, there is no rhythm used in this drawing, it is mainly a body sketch.

•Is the picture balanced? Explain...
This drawing is very balance, especially the woman was sat in the middle, and the contrast of light in this drawing is good, eg, the bottom part from the chair to the floor were darker (almost the center of the bottom) which makes us feel the weight (gravity) of the woman and the chair, so it looks very stable.

•Is perspective used in the picture? If so, describe the way that the illusion of three-dimensional space has been created.
There is no perspective, but Rembrandt did use the little light contrast on the lower back of the woman and the chair’s legs to provide a feel of three dimensions.

•Is the picture harmonious? If so, in what way?
This picture is harmonious, especially the light contrast of the walls and shadows from the woman which reflected on the left wall. And the pose of the figure was natural and organic, everything is natural, and they were organized very well. 

•Are there any strong contrasts in the picture? Say more...
In this drawing, the study of light is good. The light contrast in this drawing is more obvious, eg. the light reflected on the wall, then we can see clearly of the edge of 2 walls (on the left ). A dark contrast (the brush stroke) acts as the shadow of the chair that reflects on wall, and the oblique stroke which penetrates from the middle of the big brush stroke constructs a very big contrast, the lighter one is the shadow of the chair, the darker one reflects the woman’s body. Also the 2 slight straight brush strokes in the middle of the left, both of them makes a big contrast of the walls, so that we can see they should be shadows on both walls and they are shadow of the woman.
 
3) INTERPRETATION AND EVALUATION

•What is the mood of the drawing? Justify your answer using information from your responses above
The mood is relaxing, the woman leans on the chair peacefully. Her pose makes her feel stable and calm. The light contrasts of the right top and the bottom make the drawing feel more stable. When we look at a drawing of black color, we feel its weight, but if we look at white color, we feel it is light, and most of the dark color comes from the bottom of this drawing and it could be the center of gravity from our visual observation. It is a very steady and firm.

•What does the drawing express? Justify your answer using information from your responses above
This drawing seems like a practice of drawing, Rembrandt wanted to understand more details about the human body, he wanted to get much closer to the organic form of body. As I proofed that Rembrandt didn’t pay much attention to the background of this sketch, he mainly focused on the body shape and the chair with a cushion. Also, I can see that different medium is used, eg, pen, brush and ink and washes. And the face of the woman is blurred, if Rembrandt wants to draw this as a memorial, there is no reason to blur her face. Every part of this drawing is so precise except the face and the walls.
The way he looked at this model did not contain the male gaze, Rembrandt only grasped at every important part of the body shape. And we can feel the relationship of the woman and Rembrandt are close. 

•In your opinion, why is this work interesting/moving/ clever/ imaginative/thought-provoking/......?  Choose the adjective(s) that best fit(s) the work, and then justify your conclusion in terms of specific features and qualities of the drawing.
This drawing gives me quite a lot of references of how to draw a sketch. Before I never thought that we could use different medium to draw in one brief sketch. So, in my opinion, this sketch is thought-provoking, interesting and clever. I used to pay attention Rembrandt’s painting nd i found that his painting is amazing, especially the skill of chiaroscuro. After I focused on his sketch, I thought he is a very great artist, because he only use few pen strokes to express the body shape of the woman and the strokes are  very precise. If there is no pen strokes, we won’t see the well-rounded and fleshly body of this woman. Every stroke in this drawing is important.