The Circles of Rembrandt, Wolfville





Circles of Rembrandt, Wolfville, o/p, 24" x 50", Steven Rhude

 Painting for sale through the artist.

Inspired by the mysterious circles used by Rembrandt in his famous self portrait, the sun and moon in a Wolfville setting strikes me as a sensible place to start. When an artist co-opts the use of the circle, not only as an aesthetic, but a symbol in western art ranging from the social order to the heavens, Vasari's famous proverb comes to mind.


"...Pope Benedict IX of Treviso sent one of his courtiers into Tuscany to see what sort of man was Giotto, and of what kind his works, having designed to have some pictures made in S. Pietro. This courtier, coming in order to see Giotto and to hear what other masters there were in Florence excellent in painting and in mosaic, talked to many masters in Siena. Then, having received drawings from them, he came to Florence, and having gone into the shop of Giotto, who was working, declared to him the mind of the Pope and in what way it was proposed to make use of his labour, and at last asked him for some little drawing, to the end that he might send it to His Holiness.

 Giotto, who was most courteous, took a paper, and on that, with a brush dipped in red, holding his arm fast against his side in order to make a compass, with a turn of the hand he made a circle, so true in proportion and circumference that to behold it was a marvel. This done, he smiled and said to the courtier: "Here is your drawing." He, thinking he was being derided, said: "Am I to have no other drawing but this?" "'Tis enough and to spare," answered Giotto. "Send it, together with the others, and you will see if it will be recognized."

The envoy, seeing that he could get nothing else, left him, very ill-satisfied and doubting that he had been fooled. All the same, sending to the Pope the other drawings and the names of those who had made them, he also sent that of Giotto, relating the method that he had followed in making his circle without moving his arm and without compasses. Wherefore the Pope and many courtiers that were versed in the arts recognized by this how much Giotto surpassed in excellence all the other painters of his time. This matter having afterwards spread abroad, there was born from it the proverb that is still wont to be said to men of gross wits: "Tu sei più tondo che l' O di Giotto!"[Pg 79] ("Thou art rounder than Giotto's circle").

This proverb can be called beautiful not only from the occasion that gave it birth, but also for its significance, which consists in the double meaning; tondo being used, in Tuscany, both for the perfect shape of a circle and for slowness and grossness of understanding." [1] Vasari



[1]  Title: Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi Author: Giorgio Vasari Translator: Gaston du C. de Vere Release Date: May 5, 2008 [EBook #25326]


Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS.

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