Comparing and Contrasting the Works of Rembrandt and Bacon.

Rembrandt van Rijn and Francis Bacon both have their own unique styles that appeal to a wide variety of people, and investigating their types of portraiture is always enjoyable and uncovers more mysteries and wonder. This essay will focus on these two artists: Rembandt from the modern period and Bacon from the contemporary period, and will examine and explore their portraits through the structural, subjective and cultural frames.

The structural frames in both these artist’s styles are very different. For instance, Rembrandt’s works are well known for their special quality- the brilliant use of light to illuminate faces and rich fabric, the effective use of a limited colour palette and the way his royal dark backgrounds show off his subjects. His portraits often have an earthy red, orange or ochre colour palette, giving the portrait a mature or historic quality. The faces of the subjects are also often relatively bright in contrast to the rest of the portrait, giving the subject’s face emphasis. One such examples of these techniques is Portrait of Saskia van Uylenburgh. Here, we see that Rembrandt has taken care to depict his wife in the most beautiful way possible. She is seen seated in a three-quarter profile, with her illuminated face to emphasize her beauty. Rembrandt has also seemed to scumble some tones of orange around her hair to depict curliness, and thin-coloured paints for her veil to depict transparency. All these techniques of painting complement each other to create a truly marvellous portrait. This differentiates from Bacon’s style entirely. While the colours Bacon uses follow a realistic palette, most of them either blend or clash with each other on the portrait, resulting, normally, in a disturbing figure. For instance, the 1977 Study for a Portrait is violent and baffling. Seated uncomfortably cross-legged on a chair, the figure of the image transforms under the viewer’s gaze to appear vaguely like a man in boxer shorts, a grotesque diapered...