Rembrandt van Rijn's 407th birthday: Google doodles a portrait

"As always, Google loves to celebrate the birthdays of special people and today, an amazing man was selected." 

New Delhi: To commemorate the 407th birth anniversary of one of the greatest painters of all time, Google has posted a portrait of the celebrated Dutch painter and printmaker Rembrandt van Rijn on its home page. The Google logo appears as an etching on the background.

Rembrandt van Rijn is regarded as one of the greatest storytellers in the history of art. At the beginning of his artistic career Rembrandt mainly painted portraits and a tenth of them were self portraits, but biblical themes formed the core of Rembrandt's oeuvre.

Born on 15 July 1606, Rembrandt van Rijn (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn in full) was the fourth of six surviving children out. Four of his siblings died. Rembrandt didn't come from a family of artists or craftsman, as many of his contemporaries. His father was a miller and his mother came from a family of bakers.

The Google logo appears as an etching in the background of the Rembrandt van Rijn portrait.

His most famous works include: Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632), Belshazzar's Feast (1635), Night Watch (1642), Bathsheba at Her Bath (1654) and Syndics of the Drapers' Guild (1662).

Rembrandt died at the age of 63 on October 4, 1669 in Amsterdam.

Read more about Rembrandt and see his works HERE.

Story by:

IBN Live

Gustav Klimt honoured with Google Doodle

Join Google, Gustav Klimt  and myself as we celebrate the 150th birthday of Gustav Klimt with the rest of the world.

Australian artist, Gustav Klimt's Google Doodle.

The Austrian artist, born in 1862, displayed a fascination with eroticism and led the Secession movement. As a symbolist painter, his work caused a lot of controversy for its celebration of sexuality. Today, Gustav's pieces are counted among the most expensive artworks worldwide.

Klimt was the son of a gold engraver. In his later years, he became known for his gold leaf on his works, which he produced after he was trained at Vienna's School of Applied Art. 

The Secession movement was a group of Viennese artists who challenged the rigidity of traditional Austrian paintings, and he emerged as a master musketeer for this group. His leadership made him the only artist to do an extensive, authorized productions of his own work.

In 1903, he was forced to remove Hope 1, a painting of a naked pregnant woman from the retrospective exhibition of the Secession movement. So far, his most famous painting is The Kiss (1907-08), which reflected his fascination with eroticism.

This father of 14 illegitimate children, died from a stroke after contracting the Spanish flu during the 1918 pandemic.

In 2010, a Vienna art museum invited a sex club to hold orgies and display related paraphernalia in the Secession Building, home to Klimt's Beethoven Frieze, his most ambitious surviving work.

"As for me, I can't wait to get honored with a Google Doodle but I wonder what to do to qualify?"

Courtesy:

Gustav Klimt