Google is celebrating the birth anniversary of one of the greatest painters in history, Rembrandt van Rijn, through its Google Doodle today. The doodle has Rembrandt’s self portrait made in 1659 called ‘Self-Portrait with Beret and Turned-Up Collar’ with the words Google written behind him. The original painting is an oil on canvas and has been preserved in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (US) since 1937.
Rembrandt was born on July 15, 1606 in the Netherlands. He studied at Latin school and joined University of Leiden. Later, he was apprenticed to Leiden history painter, Jacob van Swanenburgh, for three years. In 1631, he started practicing as a professional portraitist, attaining great success.
His paintings remained popular through out his lifetime and he taught many important Dutch painters. Rembrandt is known for his self portraits as well portraits of his contemporaries and illustrations from the Bible. His self-portraits are vastly popular and form a biography by the artist himself. He died on October 4, 1669 in Amsterdam at the age of 63.
Rembrandt has made more than 600 paintings among which include 40 self portraits. His paintings were inspired by landscape and narrative painting as well as religious works. His paintings had great colour and depth. The era he painted in is known as the Dutch Golden Age which was a period of great wealth and cultural achievement. Some of his famous works include The Abduction of Europa, Returning the Pieces of Silver, Judas Repentant, The Artist in His Studio, The Night Watch, among several others.