REMBRANDT AND THE VESALIAN TRADITION

REMBRANDT AND THE VESALIAN TRADITION
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632)

One of Rembrandt’s first great masterpieces, this famous painting shows how the young (26 year-old ) Rembrandt already began placing his Art within enduring historic and scientific traditions.
Here we are brought into the anatomy theater, where Dr Nicolaes Tulp is explaining the musculature of the arm to a group of physicians, some of whom paid a commission to be painted in the work.
Of great importance from the standpoint of the thread that links Rembrandt to the Vesalian tradition is the medical text that is open near Dr Tulp. It is the foundational 1543 treatise,  _De Humani Corporis Fabrica_. written by the brilliant Dutch anatomist Andreas Vesalius (Andries van Wesel).
Dr Tulp’s teacher was Professor Pieter Pauw, whose teachers at the University of Padua  were Hieronymus Fabricius and none other than Vesalius himself.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (c.1632)
Mauritshuis. The Hague