Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1659, oil on canvas, 33 1/4 x 26 in., Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art.

In the dark manner, the painting is executed on a dark background, building the image by additions of light pigments. Much of the canvas is dark, the space surrounding the figure impenetrable and mysterious. Values gradually lighten to a focal point, here the sitter's face, with a secondary light point, the hands, clasped in the lower left corner.

Rembrandt was the foremost Dutch painter of the seventeenth century. This painting, typical of many of his self-portraits, is suffused with a profound humanity.