An Artist of the Dutch Baroque period, Rembrandt Van Rijn was born on July 15th, 1606.

His father,
Herman Gerritszoon who was a miller, his mother Neeltje or Cornelia Willemsdochter van Zuytbrouck, and
his brothers lived in the town of Leiden next to the northern branch of the Rhine River and about 25 miles
south of Amsterdam. Rembrandt was the 8th of 9 children born. His family was somewhat poor until his
mother's death in 1640 left them well off with a 10,000 florins estate.
From the time of his birth, Rembrandt's parents had directed him towards the study of law, which is unlike
his brothers who were directed towards the manual trades. He spent seven years at Latin School where he
learned a great deal about religion that later influenced his paintings and portraits.
He enrolled at the University of Leiden. After a few months he discovered that it did not interest him and
then decided to leave to pursue art. At the workshop of Jacob Isaacxszoon van Swanenburch he acquired
the basic technical knowledge of art such as perspective. Because Rembrandt had shown such dedication,
his father sent him to Amsterdam to apprentice under a very well known painter of that time, Peiter
Lastmann. There he learned to love dramatic effects such as facial expressions, hands, and learned to pay
close attention to painting all the little details. He mastered the chiaroscuro effect of using light, as well as
the bold impasto, and with those effects, he surpassed many artists of that time. Lastmann inspired him to
paint historical events, which was not a very fashionable thing to do at that time, and he was also inspired
to use bright, glossy, colors to paint pictures on a small scale. He was only in Lastmann's studio for six
months and in the mid - 1620's he opened his own studio in Leiden with his friend, another artist under
Lastmann, Jan Lievens.
An art dealer in Amsterdam, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, started to send Rembrandt commissions for
portraits. In the 1630's, at the age of 24, he not only painted portraits, but started making small etching's as
well. Because the commissions became so numerous over time and very important to the young artist, he
moved to Amsterdam.
Rembrandt married Saskia van Uylenburgh, the cousin to Hendrick and who was an orphan with a very
large estate, in 1634. The well-known painter became extremely successful and overflowing with
commissions.
By the early 1630's he had totally abandoned the typical Dutch smoothness. Rembrandt built his paintings
starting from the back and working his way to the front with layers of paint to create illusions and evolved
the most revolutionary techniques. In 1636, Paul Peter Rubens, a Flemish master of Baroque, inspired
Rembrandt to paint using biblical themes. Instead of portraying the typical laid back Baroque paintings, he
chose to surpass Ruben by injecting incredible horror into the piece of art. These vulgar themes were not
very popular at the time, but luckily his income from commissions was unaltered.
In 1639 he and his wife purchased a huge house to show off their wealth. He filled it with antique art
objects of all kinds such as jewelry, fabrics, and china - all were collected for his historical interest in
antiques, as well as models and inspiration for his historical paintings.
During his marriage he lost three sons. After giving birth to his fourth son, Titus, in September 1641 Saskia
became bedridden and died the summer of the following year. At the birth of Titus a widow, Geertghe
Dircx, came in to nurse him, and eventually became Rembrandt's mistress.
In 1645 Hendrickje Stoffels, a young girl, moved into the Rembrandt household and became his second
mistress, replacing the first. 1654 she bore him a daughter named Cornelia. She also became a main focus
of many of his portrait paintings. Rembrandt could not marry Hendrickje because of the clause in his first
wife's will, that if remarried he would forfeit her estate. He never legalized his union with Hendrickje,
despite all the difficulty caused by the Reformed Church of Amsterdam.
Rembrandt's commissions declined and so did his income. His desire for collecting antiques was not altered
by this, but eventually it caused him great deal of debt. To salvage Saskia's estate, he put the ownership of
his house in Titus' name and then filed for bankruptcy to the court in July 1656. Auctions were held to sell
his possessions, but the money from that did not satisfy the creditors. With what little he had left,
Rembrandt started an art business with Hendrickje and Titus where he served as their advisor. This kept
income out of the hands of creditors and enabled him to lead a comfortable life. When Hendrickje died in
1663, Titus took over the house and baby Cornelia.
Titus died in 1668, which devastated his father. On October 4, 1669, Rembrandt died at the age of 63 and
was buried October 8 in the Westerkerk.
Rembrandt exploited the etching process for its unique potential. He was the first artist to practice self-
portraiture as an area of expertise. He created a medium for self-fashioning that has inspired numerous
artists. He produced around 600 paintings, 300 etchings, and 1,400 drawings.