The oil painting Militia Company of District II Under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq (1642), better-known as The Night Watch, is probably Rembrandt’s most famous work. Its status and critical acclaim, though, have little to do with its subject matter: a civic-guard group tasked with keeping watch on the city walls. In 17th-century Amsterdam, it was highly common for these guilds – mostly well-off men who rarely saw anything resembling conflict – to commission portraits of themselves wearing their uniforms and holding weapons. So why has The Night Watch endured while so many similar portraits have drifted into obscurity? In this video essay, Evan Puschak (also known as the Nerdwriter) examines how Rembrandt’s riveting interplay of light, motion, texture and expression transformed a commonplace commission into a masterwork.
Video by The Nerdwriter
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Mathematics
Spiral into the ‘golden ratio’ – and separate the myths from the maths
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Art
A young Rockefeller collects art on a fateful journey to New Guinea
7 minutes
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Architecture
A lush tour of Fallingwater – the Frank Lloyd Wright design that changed architecture
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Art
Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus
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Film and visual culture
Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation
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Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
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Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes