The Dutch master who has defied time

Rembrandt's gift for capturing human expression still affects us on the 400th anniversary of his birth, writes Eileen Battersby

The son of a malt miller and a baker's daughter, he was born 400 years ago tomorrow in Leiden - then second in size and importance only to Amsterdam - and was to become the first great modern painter. Rembrandt Harmenzoon van Rijn grasped the essence of what Wordsworth would later call "the still, sad music of humanity". This emotional depth of understanding defines the surviving 500 or so often powerfully narrative paintings, 300 etchings and in excess of 1,000 drawings he left to a world which continues to revere his genius. This Dutch master's compassionate realism continues to speak across the centuries; he is to painting what Shakespeare is to literature, what Bach is to music, and most fascinatingly, Rembrandt is the only 17th-century artist that somehow manages to defy time and stand equal with two fellow all-rounders, Stravinsky and Picasso, as artists who mastered all forms.

He grew up in comfortable circumstances - his father belonged to the merchant lower middle class. Rembrandt was the eighth of his mother's nine children and the first to be groomed for formal schooling. His brothers were sent to learn trade, but not Rembrandt. Considered clever, he became at the age of seven a student at the Latin School in Leiden.

It was an important experience, as by studying Latin he must have absorbed the classical history and mythology that comes to life in many of his works. By 14, he had entered Leiden University, already one of the most distinguished European centres of learning. Within months he would leave, having convinced his parents that he wanted to be an artist, not a scholar.

They must have been disappointed. After all, had he become an academic, or a lawyer or a civil servant, the family would have taken a step up the social ladder. But there was no battle for self-expression - Rembrandt's early years were unusually easy. His parents supported his artistic ambitions. He was apprenticed to a painter, Mr Jacob Isaaxszoon van Swanenburgh, an admittedly obscure figure with whom the aspiring young artist must have learnt little, as Rembrandt never displayed interest in either of Swanenburgh's speciality subjects - architectural scenes and views of hell.

None of Rembrandt's pieces from this period survive but he had shown sufficient promise for his father to decide to send him to Amsterdam to study with Pieter Lastman, then one of the leading artists in The Netherlands, who had based a successful career on what he had learnt in Italy as a young man. Lastman's paintings had life and polish, and significantly, Lastman, as Rembrandt would be, was drawn to historical and mythological subjects. He also possessed a skill that Rembrandt would have in abundance, a flair for exotic detail.

Rembrandt stayed with Lastman for only six months, but there is no doubt that the older artist's influence was valuable in shaping the narrative quality that Rembrandt was to bring to studies such as The Night Watch (1642) his largest and most famous surviving painting depicting the triumph of Amsterdam, or his magnificently atmospheric Nocturnal Landscape with the Rest on the Flight to Egypt (1647), which shimmers with firelight and moonlight and a sense of space, as well as the story of the Holy Family. It was acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland in 1883 and remains one of the finest paintings of all time.

By 1624 or 5, Rembrandt (not yet 20) set up his own studio in Leiden in the company of Jan Lievens, also from Leiden, a year younger than Rembrandt and a fellow former student of Lastman. For a time they worked so closely that there was later often confusion about who had painted what. The pair were recognised as potential major talents. A visitor from Utrecht was to note of the 21-year-old Rembrandt, "the Leiden Miller's son is greatly praised", and on February 14th, 1628, he took on his first pupil.

During his Leiden years, Rembrandt concentrated on figure painting, mostly of Biblical themes, but also painted several self-portraits and portraits of his family. In 1631 he completed his first commissioned portrait, that of a wealthy Amsterdam merchant. It proved important. Later that year, or early in 1632, he moved to Amsterdam and set out to specialise in portrait painting.

Even that practical geographic transition proved easy as he settled into the home of a dealer van Uylenburgh, a contact from his Leiden days. The Holland of his day was rich; Dutch portrait painting was flourishing, the Amsterdam art scene was competitive but Rembrandt was as gifted as any of his rivals and had an additional genius for evoking a sitter's personality. All the while Rembrandt kept an awareness of his heritage, a tradition extending back to Jan Van Eyck, the Flemish master who had died in 1441 and whose innovations in oil painting remained pertinent.

At least 50 paintings, mostly portraits, painted between 1632 and 33 survive, indicating exactly how busy the emerging Rembrandt must have been.

This period also marked another breakthrough. Having been commissioned by an Amsterdam doctor intent on a very specific painting, Rembrandt, then 26, delivered the early masterpiece, his first large painting, and it conclusively established him. The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Nicolaes Tulp (1632) also revolutionised the group portrait as a genre. It was particularly difficult as seven of the eight living subjects - the ninth is a corpse - are all dressed identically. The onlookers admittedly look like very mature students - or perhaps medical students just looked older in those days? Rembrandt's achievement lies in not only arranging the group in a natural shape around the corpse, but in capturing their respective expressions of concentration.

Professionally, he was established. Society became fully open to him, two years later when, at 28, he married Saskia van Uylenburgh, then 21, who was the cousin of his art dealer cum erstwhile landlord. Not only was she from a higher social class, she was an orphan who had been well provided for by her parents. In time, the couple rented a house in a fashionable area of Amsterdam.

Judging by his various studies of her, including one as Flora in 1634 which hangs in the Hermitage in St Petersburg and a similar, more opulent work painted a year later, which is held in the National Gallery in London, the marriage was a romance.

But grief soon intervened with the death of three infants, none of whom survived longer than two months. Rembrandt the artist, however, thrived - teaching, taking commissions and producing works.

By 1640, he was able to give up conventional portraits - his students were beginning to paint them - and concentrate on the majestic narrative works.

The following year saw the birth of his son Titus. His beloved wife Saskia died in 1642. The widow whom Rembrandt engaged to care for his son, became for a while, Rembrandt's mistress. That relationship soon ended when Rembrandt became involved with Hendrickje Stoffels, a servant in his household.

The scorned mistress sued the artist for beach of promise. The legal action ended with the former mistress finding herself despatched to an asylum for a five-year stay.

Meanwhile, Rembrandt became interested in landscape, possibly as a result of taking long, healing walks in the countryside. Hendrickje stayed with Rembrandt until her death in 1663, six years before his. She gave birth to two children, one of whom died in infancy, the second, another daughter, Cornelia, was born in 1654 when he was 48. She was the only one of Rembrandt's six children who outlived him, and named both of her children after her parents whom she adored. Although their relationship was loving, Rembrandt never married Cornelia's mother Hendrickje because of a clause in Saskia's will that stipulated he would lose his share in her estate if he remarried.

Several years before, soon after the death of his mother and Saskia, he painted The Night Watch, a baroque masterpiece and another of his seminal works. It was inspired by an allegorical drama written by Rembrandt's contemporary, Joost van den Vondel. It hangs in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and is a pictorial work based on what was a commonplace event, the appearance of the militia.

Commissioned by the company, Rembrandt has conferred a grandeur upon it and it is in the tradition of Dutch civic portraits. It possesses movement and the bustle of militia men playing at soldiers. It also marked the end of such spectacles as The Netherlands won independence from Spain in 1648 and such militias could no longer justify themselves.

Fate is harsh, and as Rembrandt grew older, his fortune declined. By abandoning portrait painting, he had relinquished valuable income. In 1656, he transferred ownership of his house to his son, Titus, himself an artist, who was also his father's dealer. Auctions dispersed his works but still his debts mounted and his house was sold. By 1660 he was living in lodgings. Yet still masterpieces such as The Syndics of the Amsterdam Cloth Workers' Guild (1661-62) featuring six figures, warily gazing at the viewer, and The Jewish Bride (c 1665) with its rich colour, continued to manifest themselves from the brush of the ageing artist, ever alert to the possibilities of technique and the application of paint. He was poor but not forgotten.

Loyal, loving Hendrickje died in 1663, and Titus, by then married with a baby daughter, also died. Rembrandt the artist endures, as for the man, his expression in his final self-portrait, painted in 1669, months before his death on October 4th at the age of 63, says everything. Having triumphed, he had then discovered suffering, loss and hardship with acceptance, without ever compromising his genius or his belief in humanity, the defining grace of his artistic vision.