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Lot Essay
The Three Trees is one of the most celebrated and memorable landscapes in the history of western art. It is immensely pleasurable to let one's eye wander from the dark shadowy foreground across the plain to the distant skyline of the city and the edge of the shimmering sea beyond, and to pick out all the minute detail along the way: the pair of lovers, almost invisibly hidden in the thicket beneath the hill at right, the heron as it just flies out of the tree, the cowherd standing on the plain, the wagon moving along the crest of the hill, and the draftsman seated on the top, looking towards and sketching a landscape we cannot see, and many others.
Yet the true subject of the print is not so much the panorama itself, nor the allegorically charged three trees, which can be read as a reference to the Three Crosses of the Crucifixion. More than anything else, the weather is the real protagonist of Rembrandt's print. As a portrayal of meteorological phenomena, it prompts comparisons with Giorgione's Tempesta, or even with the rain and snow images of the Japanese ukiyo-e-masters. What makes this print so engaging is the spectacle of the thunder storm as it rises over the landscape in summer, still partly basked in sunlight, but soon to be covered in clouds and drenched in rain.
Rembrandt employed every printmaking technique available to him - etching, engraving, drypoint and sulphur tinting - on this plate to create the most complex and painterly of all his landscape prints.
The present impression is outstanding for the intense contrasts between the shaded foreground and the black storm clouds rushing in from the left, and the selectively wiped, sunlit areas on the hill and in the distant landscape. The vigourously engraved lines, etched clouds and the sulphur tinting in the sky are remarkably strong and dark, lending the scene a heightened sense of drama and tension.
Yet the true subject of the print is not so much the panorama itself, nor the allegorically charged three trees, which can be read as a reference to the Three Crosses of the Crucifixion. More than anything else, the weather is the real protagonist of Rembrandt's print. As a portrayal of meteorological phenomena, it prompts comparisons with Giorgione's Tempesta, or even with the rain and snow images of the Japanese ukiyo-e-masters. What makes this print so engaging is the spectacle of the thunder storm as it rises over the landscape in summer, still partly basked in sunlight, but soon to be covered in clouds and drenched in rain.
Rembrandt employed every printmaking technique available to him - etching, engraving, drypoint and sulphur tinting - on this plate to create the most complex and painterly of all his landscape prints.
The present impression is outstanding for the intense contrasts between the shaded foreground and the black storm clouds rushing in from the left, and the selectively wiped, sunlit areas on the hill and in the distant landscape. The vigourously engraved lines, etched clouds and the sulphur tinting in the sky are remarkably strong and dark, lending the scene a heightened sense of drama and tension.