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András Rényi
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Available only in print. Until 2020, Acta Historiae Artium was published in print only, with basic information on its contents accessible on the website. Online articles have been available since Volume 62 (2021).

This study aims at a new interpretation of the late Rembrandt’s mysterious Self-Portrait with Two Circles at Kenwood House (1665). Former readings of the picture neglected the fact that in this case the work of painting itself became the explicit subject. Both the psychological evocativeness of the personality represented and the “circles” as enigmatic symbols elicited especial interest as they are very much in evidence – and although commentators realized the presence of the brush, palette and mahlstick, practically noone took notice of the work in progress itself, vanishing behind the figure in the grey area of the unusually light background. Following Gary Schwartz I argue that with the two circles Rembrandt refers to the legendary contest of Apelles and Protogenes told by Pliny and Vasari’s famous story about Giotto’s “O” – both stories are about the competence of the painters to understand abstract tracks as signs of artistic skills. By minimizing the iconic difference between the real and the painted canvas, Rembrandt indicates his ambition to be part of the contest of the great painters of the past – by showing himself present as an imaginary person before the imaginary canvas, and, at the same time, by calling attention to the presence of the material tracks of his “rembrandtian” manner, put between the fine tracks of his ancient predecessors, on the real canvas.

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    Blankert, Albert : Rembrandt, Zeuxis and Ideal Beauty, in Album Amicorum J. G. van Gelder, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973, 3239.

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    Broos, B. P. J. : The ’O’ of Rembrandt, Simiolus, Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 4. 3. 1970. 150185.

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    Chapman, H. Perry : Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits. A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity, Princeton–New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990.

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    Chapman, H. Perry : The Imagined Studios of Vermeer and Rembrandt, in Inventions of the Studio, Renaissance to Romanticism, ed. Cole, Michael, Chapel Hill: Mary Pardo, 2005.

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  • Chenault-Porter 1988

    Chenault-Porter, Jeanne : Rembrandt and His Circles: More about the Late Self Portrait in Kenwood House, in The Age of Rembrandt. Studies in Seventeenth Century Dutch Painting, ed. by Fleischer, Roland E.Scott Munshower, Susan, 1988. (Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University, Vol. III)

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  • Kemp 1986

    Kemp, Wolfgang : Rembrandt: Die heilige Familie oder die Kunst, einen Vorhang zu lüften, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1986.

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  • Krauss 1985

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  • Kris–Kurz 1934/1979

    Kris, ErnstKurz, Otto: Die Legende vom Künstler. Ein geschichtlicher Versuch, Wien, 1934. English trans.: The Legend, Myth and the Magic in the Image of the Artist. A historical experiment, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.

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  • van Mander 1604

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  • Manuth 1999

    Manuth, Völker : Rembrandt and the Artist’s Self Portrait: Tradition and Reception, in Rembrandt by Himself, Catalogue of the exhibition in the National Gallery, London, eds. Brown, Christopher & Buvelot, Quentin, The Hague, 1999, 3857.

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  • Marin 1999

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  • Müller 1997

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  • Rényi 2007

    Rényi, András : A reveláció retorikája [The Rethoric of Revelation], Mûvészettörténeti Értesítô 56. 2007. 139147.

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  • Strauss – van der Meulen 1979

    The Rembrandt Documents, eds. Strauss, Walter L.van der Meulen, Marjon, with the assistance of Dudok van Heel S.A.C., and de Baar, P.J.M., New York: Abaris Books, 1979.

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  • Waldenfels 2004

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Acta Historiae Artium
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