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Artwork · 1642 · Genre painting

The Night Watch

Rembrandt
1642 · Oil on Canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
★ 9.2 editorial score

A civic-guard company bursts into motion out of deep shadow: the captain in black strides forward gesturing the advance, his lieutenant gleaming in gold beside him, muskets and a banner bristling, a dog barking, and a small girl glowing mysteriously among the men. Rembrandt turned the static group portrait into a surging drama of light and movement, every member paying but none merely posed. Long darkened by varnish into a 'night' watch, it is actually a daytime scene. Now in the Rijksmuseum, it is the most famous group portrait ever painted.

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Quote · 1986

“They come from the end of the line, most of 'em—small towns you never heard of: Pulaski, Tennessee; Brandon, Mississippi; Pork Bend, Utah; Wampum, Pennsylvania. Two years' high school's about it. Maybe if they're lucky, a job waiting for them back in a factory. But most of 'em got nothing. They're poor. They're the unwanted. Yet they're fighting for our society and our freedom. It's weird, isn't it? At the bottom of the barrel, they know it. Maybe that's why they call themselves "grunts", 'cause a grunt can take it—can take anything.”

Chris