Rats, Global Poverty, and Paying the Piper

frankly consider him a great virtuoso, " said Italian painter Guercino of Rembrandt van Rijn. Guercino (1591–1666) was referring to the legendary master not as painter or portraitist but as etcher because it was etchings that built Rembrandt's reputation during his lifetime (1). The fi rst to fully exploit this technique, which dates back to 14th-century armor ornamentation, he left behind some 300 fi ne prints, a benchmark for posterity. Most were small, displayed not on walls but in albums like early photographs, rested on tables for a closer look. Etchings are created by drawing on a resin-or wax-coated metal plate with a needle. The plate is immersed in acid, which " bites " or eats away the lines where the metal is exposed. Rembrandt viewed this technique as drawing. Attracted to its spontaneity, he practiced it throughout his career and defi ned it with inventiveness and fl air. His genius lay in the light touch of the draftsman, not the heavy hand of the professional printmaker. Using the needle as brush or pen, he created lines that fl owed across the plates, varied in texture and tone from being carved more deeply or immersed longer in the acid bath (2). For even greater tonal variation, Rembrandt experimented with drypoint—drawing lines directly into the soft surface of the copper plate. These lines held more ink and formed velvety black, rich shadows. Combined etching and drypoint limited copies from a single plate, sometimes to as few as 15, from possible hundreds. His fi nest prints are rare and unique, even if created by a reproductive process. Unlike other 17th-century artists, who did the drawing, then turned the task over to printmakers, he did the total job himself, able to alter the drawing throughout the process and create, from the same plate, prints that were not identical. The paper used, common European white or thin absorbent , ivory-yellow or light gray Japanese, also produced remarkable variations. On these small plates, Rembrandt etched life in his native Holland. To capture natural movement, he ran a theatrical studio, where apprentices played out gestures for each other and enacted scenes from the streets of Amsterdam and the fringes of society. Enlivened with dramatic light and shadow, these indelible scenes established his reputation as master storyteller. They described an urban culture conscious of boundaries and criteria for inclusion and exclusion ; focused on work, thrift, and …