Rembrandt Laughing

Rembrandt Laughing, from the early 1630s, belongs to the series of facial expression studies that Rembrandt produced both as independent works and as preparatory material for his history paintings. The tronie of a laughing face — probably a self-portrait, though the identification is not certain — participates in the tradition of studies of extreme or unusual facial expressions that stretches back through Leonardo's caricature heads to classical sculpture's exploration of emotional states. In Dutch art, the laughing figure had specific cultural associations: Frans Hals had made joyous, laughing figures his specialty, and Rembrandt's own laughing tronies respond to and complicate Hals's apparently simple celebration of laughter. The painting is currently at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, part of the Getty's systematic building of a collection that includes significant Dutch Golden Age works alongside its broader European holdings. The laughing face, direct and unguarded, represents a side of Rembrandt's art quite different from the gravity of his great self-portraits and religious works.

The expressive, spontaneous quality of the open-mouthed laugh is achieved through quick, energetic brushwork, with the strong raking light catching the young artist's animated features against a dark background.