About Physical and Cultural Aspects of Age

Abstract

Aging has been a theme in art for a very long time. A marble sculpture known as The Old Market Woman from an early imperial period, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, dates from AD 14–68 and is one of the earliest representations of old age (1). It is actually a copy of an even earlier work from the Hellenistic period. In the Renaissance, the theme of “three ages of man,” meaning youth, adulthood, and old age, engaged artists such as Giorgione (1478–1510) and his pupil Titian (1490–1576). Representation of aging is particularly striking in the oeuvre of Rembrandt Hermensz van Rijn (1606–1669) (Fig. 1) (2). He was born in Leiden and first was an apprentice to a minor portrait painter, Jacob van Swanenburgh. He then studied with Peter Lastman (1583–1633) in Amsterdam. Rembrandt became a successful portraitist and painter of religious stories and historical themes. In contrast to other leading artists of the period, he did not travel to Italy. He moved permanently to Amsterdam in 1631 and at the peak of his career was regarded as one of the leading portraitists there. His Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, widely known as The Night Watch, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, is probably his best-known group portrait (3). Unfortunately, Rembrandt's career did not end well. When the general taste changed to the classicist, his style of painting went out of fashion. He became impoverished and at some point had to sell a large number of his paintings cheaply to pay his debts.

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