The Night Watch
In the year 1642, a painting by the great artist Rembrandt van Rijn was completed. This work, known as "The Night Watch," is housed in the Amsterdam Museum, but is on prominent display at the Rijksmuseum as the most famous painting in its collection.
The painting is renowned for its impressive size, measuring a staggering 363 by 437 centimeters, and for its use of light and shadow to create a sense of motion and drama. It depicts the Militia Company of District II, led by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch, as they march forward. The figures in the painting are almost life-size, and the eye is naturally drawn to the three central figures: the two men in the center, and the woman in the background holding a chicken.
The woman is carrying the traditional symbols of the arquebusiers, a type of soldier. The claws of a dead chicken on her belt represent the clauweniers, and the pistol behind the chicken represents clover. She is also holding the militia's goblet. The man in front of her is wearing a helmet with an oak leaf, another symbol of the arquebusiers. The chicken, which represents a defeated adversary, is meant to symbolize victory, as the color yellow is often associated with triumph.
The "Night Watch" painting was commissioned in approximately 1639 by Captain Banninck Cocq and seventeen other members of the Kloveniers, a group of civic militia guards. It was intended to hang in the banquet hall of the newly built Kloveniersdoelen in Amsterdam, and it is thought that the commission may have been connected to the visit of French queen Marie de Medici in 1638. Rembrandt was paid a large sum of 1,600 guilders for the work, and a total of 34 people are depicted in the painting.
There is some debate among scholars as to where the painting was actually created. It is too large to have been completed in Rembrandt's studio in his house, and some have suggested that it was painted in an adjacent church or on site at the Kloveniersdoelen. Others believe that Rembrandt applied to build a "summer kitchen" on the back of his house, which would have been large enough to accommodate the painting during the three years it took him to complete it.
"The Night Watch" was originally hung in the Groote Zaal of Amsterdam's Kloveniersdoelen, which is now the Doelen Hotel. In 1715, the painting was moved to the Amsterdam Town Hall, where it was trimmed on all four sides to fit between two columns. This alteration resulted in the loss of certain elements of the painting, including two figures on the left side and parts of the arch, balustrade, and step. A copy of the painting made in the 17th century by Gerrit Lundens, which is now housed at the National Gallery in London, shows the original composition.
During Napoleon's occupation of the Netherlands, the Town Hall was turned into the Palace on the Dam and the painting was moved to the Trippenhuis. After the occupation ended, the painting was returned to the Trippenhuis, which was now home to the Dutch Academy of Sciences. It remained there until it was moved to the new Rijksmuseum upon its completion in 1885.
In September 1939, at the start of World War II, the painting was removed from the Rijksmuseum and stored in a special safe in a cave in Maastricht. After the war, the painting was restored and returned to the Rijksmuseum. In 2003, it was temporarily moved to a different location due to renovations at the museum, and in 2021 it was exhibited with missing sections recreated using artificial intelligence. The augmented version of the painting, which includes the missing sections as interpreted by an AI algorithm, was on display for a limited time and is not intended to be permanently exhibited in order to avoid misleading viewers into thinking they are seeing the full original work.
For much of its existence, "The Night Watch" was covered in a thick layer of dark varnish, which led to the mistaken belief that it depicted a nighttime scene. This varnish protected the painting from damage on several occasions, including when a shoemaker attempting to protest his lack of employment slashed at the canvas with a knife in 1911, and when an escaped psychiatric patient sprayed acid onto the painting in 1990. In both cases, the varnish layer was damaged, but the painting itself was not.
In 1975, the painting was attacked with a bread knife by a mentally ill school teacher, causing several deep slashes in the canvas. It was successfully restored after four years of work, though some evidence of the damage can still be seen upon close inspection. In July 2019, a lengthy and complex restoration process began, with the painting being moved into a glass enclosure in the Rijksmuseum and the restoration work being livestreamed to the public. The goal of the restoration was to carefully examine the painting "layer by layer and pigment by pigment" in order to better understand the techniques used by Rembrandt in its creation.
In October 2011, the Rijksmuseum introduced a new LED lighting system for "The Night Watch" that was both energy-efficient and able to accurately showcase the nuanced colors of the painting. The LED lights used have a color temperature of 3,200 kelvin, similar to the warm white light produced by tungsten halogen bulbs. They also have a color rendering index of over 90, making them suitable for illuminating delicate works of art like "The Night Watch." The use of these LED lights allowed the museum to save 80% on energy while also providing a safer environment for the painting, as they produce no UV radiation or heat.
In May 2020, the Rijksmuseum released a high-resolution image of "The Night Watch" that was created from 528 individual still photographs. The image, which has a resolution of 44.8 gigapixels, was stitched together using digital technology and neural networks. It was primarily intended to allow scientists to view the painting remotely and to study the effects of aging on the artwork. The image can be accessed online and can be zoomed in to view the fine details of the painting.
"The Night Watch" has been referenced and depicted in a variety of artistic and cultural works. French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote about the painting in his 1961 essay "Eye and Mind," noting the complexity of the spatial relationships between the figures depicted. It has also inspired musical compositions, including the second movement of Gustav Mahler's 7th Symphony and a song by rock band King Crimson. In film, Alexander Korda's 1936 biographical film "Rembrandt" depicts the painting as a failure upon its completion, while Jean-Luc Godard's 1982 film "Passion" reenacts the painting with live actors in the opening shot and compares it to his own film. The painting is also a central plot point in the 1995 film "Night Watch," which focuses on its theft.
"The Night Watch" has been referenced and depicted in various forms of media and pop culture. It has been parodied on the cover of a book by Terry Pratchett and is the subject of two films by director Peter Greenaway, "Nightwatching" and "Rembrandt's J'Accuse," which explore the idea that the painting may contain hidden allegorical meaning. It has also inspired a literary work by Portuguese writer Agustina Bessa Luís and appeared on the television show "The Amazing Race" and the South Korean series "Goblin." In the video game "Horizon Forbidden West," it appears as a part of an art collection.
There are various replicas of "The Night Watch" in existence. A bronze-cast representation by Russian artist Alexander Taratynov was displayed in Amsterdam and has since been permanently installed in front of a statue of Rembrandt. The Canajoharie Library & Art Gallery in New York houses a full-sized replica, while Royal Delft in the Netherlands has a replica made up of 480 tiles and painted entirely in blue. In 2013, the Rijksmuseum recreated the painting in a surprise flashmob in a shopping mall in Breda, Netherlands. An unknown buyer gifted a version of the painting, made using traditional cobalt oxide and painted entirely in black, to the museum on loan for public display.