The anatomy lesson of Dr. Joan Deijman
Rembrandt·1656
Historical Context
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Joan Deijman from 1656, now fragmentary in the Rijksmuseum after a fire in 1723 destroyed most of the original canvas, was commissioned by the Amsterdam surgeons' guild in succession to Rembrandt's famous Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp of 1632. Where the Tulp painting depicted the dissection of a forearm from a conventional side view, the Deijman commission chose a far more radical approach: the corpse is shown in a direct foreshortening from below, the top of the skull removed and the brain exposed, the composition recalling Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ. This almost provocative frontality — the viewer placed at the feet of the eviscerated body, looking up at the exposed brain — makes the surviving fragment one of the most viscerally confronting images in Dutch Golden Age painting. The decision to frame the anatomy lesson in this way, rather than in the more conventional side-view grouping, suggests that Rembrandt and the guild actively sought to claim intellectual and artistic ambition for the commission.
Technical Analysis
The surviving fragment reveals Rembrandt's extraordinary rendering of the exposed brain and the surgeon's precise gestures. The composition's foreshortened corpse, inspired by Mantegna's Dead Christ, demonstrates Rembrandt's engagement with Italian Renaissance prototypes.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the foreshortened corpse — the composition inspired by Mantegna's Dead Christ, Rembrandt engaging with Italian Renaissance prototypes.
- ◆Look at the exposed brain and the surgeon's precise gestures — the anatomy rendered with clinical accuracy and artistic power simultaneously.
- ◆Observe what the fire preserved: the central fragment showing exactly the moment of highest anatomical and emotional intensity.
- ◆Find the survival's paradox: the fire that destroyed most of the canvas preserved precisely the passage that most concentrates Rembrandt's anatomical vision.
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