A NEW VISION OF REMBRANDTS PERSONALITY AND CREATIVITY: TWO EXHIBITIONS OF THE REMBRANDT YEAR (AND ONE POLISH PICTURE) (Nowa wizja osobowosci i tworczosci Rembrandta: dwie wystawy roku rembrandtowskiego (i jeden obraz polski))

The 'Rembrandt Year' - 2006 - has brought about a far-reaching revision of the artist's person and works. The present article discusses several exhibitions held in that year. As the background for two of them, recognised as the most important, serves a critical opinion on the exposition of 'Rembrandt - Caravaggio' held at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (curators: D. Bull, T. Dibbits and others), resulting from the conception of 'postmodernist ahistoricism', offering the spectators random associations, their own complements and interpretations of the works by both masters. The juxtaposition of the works by both artists - such different as regards their respective historical period, social and religious circumstances, and artistic temperament - revealed only the timeless, accidental similarities. Scientifically important, however, were the presentations: 'Rembrandt. Zoektocht van een genie' (Rembrandt: the quest of a genius) - held at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam (Rembrandthuis), displayed under the title of 'Rembrandt: Genie auf der Suche', with different arrangements of the exhibits, in Berlin (Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen), and 'Rembrandts Landschaften - Rembrandts landschappen' (Rembrandt's landscapes) at Kassel (Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe), then at Leiden (Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal). An analysis of these exhibitions is the impulse to popularise among Polish receivers a new vision of Rembrandt's oeuvre, outlined recently by Ernst van de Wetering, and at the same time to present the results of the research carried under his supervision and restoration works of the Rembrandt's paintings from the Lanckoronski collection at the Warsaw Royal Castle: 'The Scholar at the Lectern' and 'The Girl in a Picture Frame' (both dated 1641).