René Klarenbeek

In recent years, like a monomaniac, I’ve quite obsessively been studying the works of Rembrandt and his school in great detail, with the selfish aim of finally becoming a ‘real’ painter. Although I’ve closed the art academy door quite consciously and firmly behind me more than a quarter of a century ago, and afterwards having worked as a painter 'with both feet in real life', wherever it may be (see: www.painter.nl), a lack of both substantive and technical painting competence has been staring at me like a reproaching gap in my incomplete development - and constantly kept on challenging me. So that meant starting at point zero again. The 'real' painting was necessary in order to skill myself in being able to work out all these narrative images luring at me as inseparable shades. For that purpose the REMBRANDT PUPIL PROJECT (see: www.rembrandtpupil.com) was established and its subprojects were subsequently performed in various museums in the recent years. As an autodidactic student from the 21st century, I served the great master by working on the same assignments with which Rembrandt has trained his 17th-century pupils in his studio as well. The goal was not to clone Rembrandt’s originals, not even to adapt his style, but rather to improve my own skills through learning the ABC of painting by a step by step reconstruction of his specific working methods. Just the way transferring knowledge and skills was done for many generations prior to our modernistic era, in which many of these competences suddenly were considered superfluous, undesirable and even harmful for a true artist. On top of the self improvement goal of one pupil, the RPP (and its educational offspring www.naerdenatuer.nl) also deliberately and demonstratively aims to reconnect with an almost disappeared tradition. Although after a few years working as a diligent pupil, by far not feeling like a graduate, I finally realised that it became high time to start telling my own stories with the acquired skills. For it would be a missed opportunity if on my funeral I would be remembered as the man who could paint like Rembrandt so very skilfully. As a conclusion of my autodidactic study period with the master, on top of the many (I must admit quite imaginative) conversations we had, Rembrandt himself gave me the graduation assignment to create a new series of large history paintings on illustrious 17th century painting themes in 21st century settings: www.conterfeyter.com