Introduction: The Night Watch

The Night Watch, the most famous painting in the Rijksmuseum, actually has another title: the 'Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch'. The picture is a militia painting: a group portrait of a division of the civic guard. Rembrandt depicted the group of militiamen in an original way. He did not paint them in neat row or sitting at their annual banquet, rather, he recorded a moment: a group of militiamen have just moved into action and are about to march off.

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Light and Shade

The contrasts between light and shade in the painting enhance the feeling of action and movement.

Rembrandt has used the fall of the light to focus attention on the most important figures: the captain and the lieutenant.

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Who is in the Night Watch?

The names of the eighteen militiamen portrayed in the painting are on a shield above the gate. A company comprised more members, but only those who paid were included in the group portrait. The drummer was hired and was therefore allowed to be in the painting for free. Rembrandt added the others to enliven the painting.

Three people on the left of the picture disappeared in the eighteenth century when part of the canvas was cut off. We are now only able to match a few names to the faces in the portrait

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The girl as mascot

Oak leaf on the helmet

Ruytenburch: jacket with crosses

SymbolsThe militiamen in the Night Watch are called Arquebusiers after the arquebus, a sixteenth-century long-barrelled gun. Rembrandt worked the traditional emblem of the Arquebusiers into the painting in a natural way: the girl in the foreground is carrying the main symbols. She is a kind of mascot in herself: the claws of the chicken (1) on her belt represent the 'Clauweniers'- Arquebusiers; the pistol (2) behind the chicken stands for 'clover'; moreover, she is holding the militia's goblet (3). The man in front of her is wearing a helmet with an oak leaf - a traditional motif of the Arquebusiers. Another subtle detail reveals these to be Amsterdam Arquebusiers: the three crosses of the Amsterdam coat of arms can be seen in the lapel of the lieutenant's jacket.

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Anthonisz: row (1533)

Eliasz: seated/standing (1642)

Ketel: full length (1588)

Night Watch: a moment (1642)

Utterly new: a moment in time!In sixteenth-century militia paintings, the guardsmen are usually depicted in rows or sometimes seated around a table. In 1588, Cornelis Ketel painted the first group of militiamen full-lengthFull-lengthThis term is used to indicate that the subject portrayed is shown in full, from head to toe.. Nicolaes Eliasz, a contemporary of Rembrandt's, combined seated and standing militiamen on a single canvas. In Rembrandt's Night Watch, the militiamen are milling around. They are talking and holding their weapons. Already on the move, Captain Banning Cocq is issuing orders to his lieutenant, Van Ruytenburch, for the company to march. It looks like a snapshot of a group in action rather than a posed portrait. This is what makes the Night Watch so radically different from other militia paintings.

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Rendering of textureRembrandt was a master at depicting different materials. He used highly diverse ways of painting for different parts of the picture: sometimes with great precision, other times using rough brushstrokes; sometimes painting smoothly and sometimes using thick daubs of paint. Rembrandt often sacrificed accuracy for liveliness.

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CompositionHow is the Night Watch composed?

the architecture in the foreground is more or less symmetrical a number of militiamen are also symmetrically positioned the captain and the lieutenant are standing just to the right of centre this asymmetry brings tension to the picture: the eye draws both the men a little to the

left, in the direction they are walking - this enhances the feeling of movement the lines of a number of pole arms are equidistant: they connect the centre of the

composition with the space outside the painting.

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Troublesome foreshortening in the captain and lieutenant

X-rays of the partisan

Troublesome foreshorteningBanning Cocq's hand and Van Ruytenburch's partisan appear to literally come out of the painting. This type of foreshortening occurs when the image is altered to appear larger up close and smaller when the image is far away. Since the Renaissance many artists have made use of the science of perspective to represent a three-dimensional subject on a flat surface. As we perceive them, objects look smaller the further they are from us. To create an illusion of space therefore the artist must also represent the objects or people in the distance as being smaller, according to specific proportions. The most difficult thing is to reproduce long objects or parts of the body that are at right angles to the surface of the painting and which are as it were pointed at the viewer, for instance a spear or an arm reaching out. To approximate the way we see such objects they have to be depicted 'foreshortened'. In proportion then they occupy only a small part of the canvas. In some cases the foreshortening is applied so forcibly that it feels a little exaggerated. is extremely difficult to paint. Rembrandt dealt brilliantly with this obstacle. The captain's hand is almost tangible. However, Rembrandt had more problems with Van Ruytenburch's gun. This is now clear from X-rays of the painting. The partisan was far too large in Rembrandt's first version and had to be corrected a number of times. Rembrandt usually painted directly onto the canvas without preparatory sketches. A good example of this method is his portrait of the ' Sampling Officials' of 1662.

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Wapenhandelinghe

Rembrandt showed a few of the musketeers in action: before, during and after firing. For the details of the action he probably consulted the illustrations

in 'Wapenhandelinghe', a book on drill by Jacques de Gheyn. This manual, with its engravingsEngravingEngraving is the earliest form of print making. A copperplate engraving is made by scratching the design onto the copper with a burin - a steel needle with a wooden handle. The engraver works away from the body, producing regular lines ending in a characteristic point. Ink applied to the copperplate enters the incised lines and is transferred to the paper with a press - the deeper the cut, the darker the line. Hatching and cross-hatching are used to create halftones and shadows. A single engraving can be use for some 300 high-quality and 300 reasonable prints. After that, the copper plate becomes too worn. of military exercises appeared in 1607.

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Gesture by D. Jacobsz, 1529 Captain by T. de Keyser, 1632 Night Watch: same kind of gesture

True to traditionThe militiamen can be recognised from their weapons and attributes. Lieutenants usually hold a partisanPartisanA partisan is a weapon with a shaft of some three to four metres and along flat iron blade, culminating in a broad point. At the base of the blade are tiny hooks. Partisans were employed as weapons in battle from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. By the 17th century it had become the lieutenant's symbol in the Dutch militias. Today a few regiments of guardsmen still carry partisans. and the ensign the standard. Sergeants are traditionally armed with a halberdHalberdA halberd is a versatile weapon consisting of a long wooden shaft (measuring more than two metres) topped by a spearhead, with a blade and a pick on either side. In battle it was used for cleaving and thrusting, while the pick was used to unhorse cavalry. Halberds were borne by foot soldiers from the Middles Ages to the 16th century. They were later replaced by the pike and subsequently only borne by sergeants, generally as a sign of rank. Some kings maintained a special guard of halberdiers. The word 'halberd' derives from the German words

The captain can be recognised from the gesture he is making with his left hand. A similar gesture appeared in the first militia painting by Dirck Jacobsz of 1529 and can be found in many of the later group portraits.

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'Hahn' (pole) and 'Barte' (axe).. The captain's walking stick also often appears in militia paintings.

Here come the guards

But where are they going? Although the militiamen in the Night Watch may appear to be positioned at random, Rembrandt has constructed the composition with great care. The drawing shows the positions and movement of the figures through the space, seen from above. The militiamen are coming out of the gate and moving towards us. The captain and the lieutenant form the vanguard, with two men directly in their wake. The man who is shooting behind the captain and the two girls are walking from left to right, crossing the line of movement of the militia men

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The Arquebusiers hall in Amsterdam

Original locationThe Night Watch was made for the Arquebusiers hall. The building was extended in 1638 with the financial support of the municipal authorities. The militia commissioned seven group portraits for the 'Groote Zaal', or Great Hall, on the first floor. This was four metres high and the militia paintings were larger than was usual for this kind of painting. The paintings decorated three walls; there were windows in the fourth wall. The Night Watch hung on the long wall beside canvases by Jacob Backer and Nicolaes Eliasz. The other paintings were by Flinck, Von Sandrart and Van der Helst. It is not certain where Rembrandt painted the large canvas. Perhaps he worked under a lean-to in the garden of his house on Jodenbreestraat.

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Moved and batteredThe Night Watch has been moved a couple of times. The painting hung in the Great Hall of the Arquebusiers until 1715. It was then moved to the town hall on Dam Square, at which point it was drastically altered. Because the Night Watch was

too large for the wall there, it was cut on all sides. A particularly large piece was cut off the left side. Unfortunately none of these pieces were kept. A seventeenth-century copy by Gerrit Lundens shows how the painting originally looked.

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RijksmuseumIn 1817 the Night Watch was moved to the newly opened Rijksmuseum, at that time housed in TrippenhuisTrippenhuisTrippenhuis is a large 17th-century house on Kloveniersburgwal in Amsterdam. It is named after the Trip family, who were the first to live there. For much of the 19th century, it housed the 's Rijks Museum. In 1885 the national art collection moved to the present Rijksmuseum.. When the museum acquired its own building in 1885, the Night Watch was moved to the specially designed Night Watch Gallery at the end of the gallery of honour. It was not long before criticism about the light conditions around the Night Watch was raised. This led to a new gallery being built behind the original one in 1906. Here the painting could be lit from the side (rather than from above). Today the painting is back in its original location, with a velum on the ceiling to protect it from direct sunlight. The painting has only once been moved from its present location and that was during the Second World War, when it was rolled up and stored in a bunker.

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