For art historian Simon Schama, Rembrandt is the greatest artist of all time. In this beautiful film, Schama, one of the world leading experts on Rembrandt, assesses the Dutch master’s final works as he faced the challenges of old age. In his last years leading up to his death in 1669, he was to find a whole new artistic language to express the pleasures and pains of growing old. Far from diminishing as he aged, his creativity gathered new energy in the final years of his life. Rembrandt’s twilight years were turbulent lagued by illness, poverty, and bereavement. But exquisite beauty was borne from this misery, and, despite at the time being dismissed as substandard, grotesque even, the artist’s late works were full of passion, innovation, and deep self-reflection. Filmed in the picturesque city of Amsterdam, the program is a sumptuous visual treat, as well as offering an intriguing insight into a particularly vivid period of the great artist oeuvre.
