The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2019 | Page 25

nist or Independent Thinker?
due to money issues stemming from
Saskia’s inheritance. He never kept
household records to keep track of his
money—or the lack of it. Out of utter
distaste for cooperating with governmental
entities, Rembrandt often neglected
to pay taxes, file necessary court
papers, or answer legal summons. Noted
for his rudeness at times, probably
due to these struggles, he lost patrons
and was able to secure only a few commissions.
Yet he had the resourcefulness,
or audacity, to evade notaries and
to connive others into lending him even
more money despite his manipulations
and well-known untrustworthiness.
He was incredibly creative in dodging
creditors and continued to dig himself
into a bottomless pit of debt.
The tone of Rembrandt’s works
grew more frank and analytical in the
last decade of his life, probably reflecting
the loss of Saskia and Hendrickje and
the weight of his financial problems. He
gave up society portraiture, and while
sometimes erratic in quality, his scenes
concentrated on lonely, anonymous figures,
some simply domestic, but many
in the biblical genre. He appears to have
come closer to the “invented” artistic
style that Halewood describes. Of the
Reformation subjects that allegedly satisfied
the master theme of forgiveness
or mercy, Rembrandt illustrated them
all, often many times over. But was this
the “invention” Halewood posits? 12
Stylistically, Dutch Reformation
art in general had already been playing
down the “prettiness” of earlier
art, moving towards simplicity, darker
colors, minimal gestures, and blurred