From the museum’s website, 17 May 2016
The first part of the exhibition is dedicated to the Leyden period (1625-1631), where Rembrandt came into his own as a painter. It will enable visitors to grasp the evolution of Rembrandt’s art, with primarily historical and biblical themes, highlighting the artist’s perfect mastery of technique, the increasingly apparent presence of light and shadow, and the growing psychological comprehension of his subjects, such as in The Pilgrims of Emmaus.
The second part will be dedicated to Rembrandt’s years of triumph in Amsterdam, from 1631 to 1635, when he produced numerous portraits of notables deemed “more lively” than those of other reputed portrait painters in the great capital of art. The works of Rembrandt are admirable for the extraordinary energy visible in the portraits, the historical and biblical scenes, and especially in the engravings and drawings, that will be exhibited as a counterpoint to his paintings.
The period of 1652-1669 is known as Rembrandt’s “late style”, when the painter reached the apogee of his art. His realistic, smooth and subtle style appears disconnected from the art of his Dutch contemporaries and the taste of the epoch. Rembrandt simplified shapes and colors, as his drawings became “cubist”, and his palette more restricted, concentrating on the essential.