Ligh shade in Rembrandt's portraits

Light concept which is considered as an indispensable element of painting art today was taken to forefront from Baroque genre. The main effort of Baroque genre artists who showed themselves in 17th century was to struggle against artificiality. Although Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) who can be considered as one of the most remarkable artists of that genre is generally known as a portrait artist, his other works are also significant. As he put emphasis on saturation just like other Baroque genre artists, he didn't avoid using very vibrant and very deep colors together. The key elements of his art are pattern, contradiction of light-dark, and clour. Rembrandt's significance in painting history lies on the way he use light and shade. In his sense of art, light concept is the main element of painting. Refusing the previous methods including the ones offered by his masters, he aimed to reflect visual effect of light to his toile by using light and darkness contradiction. The effect of saturation he created by aforementioned light-darkness contradiction has lasted till today and brought forth concepts such as "Rembrandt Illumination" and the light saturation created by Rembrandt impressed all areas of visual arts. Rembrandt's portrait works , especially, are works that light-shade applied in meticulously and vibrantly. In this study, Rembrandt's portrait works are viewed elaborately and dwelt on significance of light shade in his portraits. Keywords: Baroque genre, painting, Rembrandt, portrait, Light-Shade