Assignment 4. Part 1

1. The video “Simon Schama’s Rembrandt” shows that portrait of the fur merchant named “Nicolaes Ruts”. Form the picture, this man wears the high priced Russian sable that may want to brand himself by wearing his item in trade. And then, this hair painting of Rut’s sable is beautiful and amazing. The fur is soft and smooth, and falls down his body like a river. Also, his sharp eyes and clean and ordered beard express that Rut is an intelligent and confident merchant. In addition, this video describes this portrait is solid. There is a deep shadow by his right side so that effectively highlights the stereoscopic body and the fur. His face is also solid, vivid, and detailed by adding some pink color on the cheek and a shadow on his eyelids. Furthermore, the video mentions that the Amsterdam was like the discount supermarket and could provide a variety of products in 17^th century. In other words, Amsterdam was an important city for trading. Nicolaes Ruts is an intelligent business man and he had a majority of businesses in Amsterdam. He developed the economy of Amsterdam and became richer and richer so that he is the business man’s hero.

2. Unlike the Nicolaes Ruts who has a pair of sharp eyes, this portrait of 83 year old woman’s eyes fills with wistfulness. Her facial expression evidently shows she is sad and unhappy. 

3. Most artists depict Samson as a naked man; however, Rembrandt’s “Sampson & Delilah” tried a different way to depict that dresses Samson amazingly leads him to be more vulnerable. From the gesture of Delilah, we can see Rembrandt wants to reach at the heart of the story of Sampson and Delilah. He wants to represent and focus on the loved betray by depicting Sampson is deeply sleeping on Delilah whom he loves and trust. And depicting Delilah is going to cut Sampson’s hair. Also, man who is peeping makes this betray stronger and more brutal.