(jazzy piano music)
- [Beth] We're standing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
looking at a painting that I've loved for many years.
This is Rembrandt's Aristotle contemplating
the bust of Homer.
I'm looking at it today with Jim Coddington,
who was for many years the chief conservator
at the Museum of Modern Art.
What I'm drawn to is the surface of the painting;
the areas where the brush work seems quick,
almost like Rembrandt is showing off in his
ability to depict texture,
but other areas where it's thickly built up.
- [Jim] I do think he's showing off.
I think painters are making things
for the public to see
and they want to differentiate themselves.
I, too, am attracted to that texture,
but I'm also trying to understand how
some of this textured surface is lying underneath
and is not part of what the final composition is
that we see today.
- [Beth] So you're noticing some discrepancies
in what seems to be underneath?
- [Jim] Right, and I think that looking at
the texture of a painting is often a way
to arrive at that kind of understanding.
Part of what I as a conservator will do is
walk to a point where what we call specular light,
light that's falling directly on
the surface of the picture.
Here, I'm looking particularly in the area of
Aristotle's hat and above his proper right shoulder.
- [Beth] I see a lot of what looks like
a crustiness under the surface of the dark paint,
and also a crustiness that disappears
above that proper right shoulder.
- [Jim] That crustiness is the evidence of
the buildup of paint, which is evidence of
labor on the part of the artist.
- [Beth] So does this mean that Rembrandt
scraped away that, perhaps, semi-dry paint
above the right shoulder at some point?
- [Jim] Or perhaps the shoulder came up
that high originally and that is something
that was rendered in the background that
he had since come over and painted this dark,
almost black on top of it.
What we're looking at here is the process,
the editing of the composition
as Rembrandt worked his way along.
- [Beth] And we're seeing that a little bit
along the left arm as well.
Looks like there were some changes that took place
in the position of that arm.
- [Jim] If you look closely and get in a little
to the left, you can begin to see
the residue of a few brush marks that
make no sense as part of the background.
They have a purposefulness that does not match
the flatness of the overall background.
- [Beth] And in fact parallels the line of
the arm from the shoulder.
- [Jim] We see evidence of him
possibly having edited both shoulders,
perhaps scraping down on the proper right
and simply painting over on the proper left.
- [Beth] This is so interesting to me
because these seem like inconsequential decisions,
but all of these compositional decisions create meaning.
- [Jim] They certainly were important to Rembrandt,
and that's why I want to understand them.
Rembrandt is a genius.
Why does it matter to lower the right shoulder?
- [Beth] Why did he pay so much attention to
the gold chain and yet leave that
proper left hand so seemingly unfinished?
- [Jim] Seemingly unfinished,
and let's be frank about it;
it's a huge hand.
Is this another one of his devices for
drawing attention to something by
making it slightly different?
That gesture which art historians have
argued about what its meaning is,
what the meaning of that chain is.
But that chain is given meaning by
the fact that Aristotle is touching it.
- [Beth] And it's so heavily encrusted.
If we look at it in a little bit of raking light,
we can see the amount of paint
that's built up there.
- [Jim] I think in the case of the hand on top of
the head of Homer, we can see the few
very light strokes of black paint
beneath the palm of the hand and above
the head of Homer, suggesting that there is
space there and that there's not a lot of
pressure by the hand.
In the case of the hand touching the chain,
we just see two fingers barely ...
They're not deep inside the chain,
they're just sensing, it seems to me,
that crusty texture of the chain.
Both of these are contemplative gestures.
What I'm looking at right now is the ring
on the proper left hand. - Yes.
- [Jim] As one looks at this picture,
one becomes more and more aware of it.
- [Beth] And to me, that gleaming metal
stands in real contrast to the simplicity of
the stone bust of the great
ancient Greek poet, Homer.
- [Jim] If one moves their way up
the proper left arm, one goes in a passage of
the painting that just is riveting to me.
It's not just because of
the handling of the paint,
which is just delicious, but as you stand back
about 10 feet from this picture,
suddenly these things just fall into place,
creating that complete sense of the fabric
down the shoulder and then up the arm.
- [Beth] Which means that Rembrandt,
standing close to the painting, had to know
and had to have this really intense
familiarity with technique and his materials
to know that when one stood back,
these things would come together.
One does see different things as one moves back
and forward, and to the right, and to the left.
For example, when we move to the right,
we notice there was a lighter tone
underneath the brim of the hat.
- [Jim] Moving around a painting gives you
many opportunities to see more about
the painting, not just the surface.
- [Beth] Looking at a painting takes time.
- [Jim] I always think about how many hours,
how much work went into the painting.
And why should I think that I can understand it
in 10 seconds when Rembrandt labored for
so many hours over so many of
the different kinds of decisions that
we've been talking about here?
They're all meaningful to him,
and I think that I can understand
the depth of this painting by
thinking about it a bit longer.
(jazzy piano music)