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Of all the Baroque masters, it was Rembrandt who evolved the most revolutionary technique and who seemed to grow into the Italians' spiritual heir. Where others needed five touches he was using one, and so the brushstrokes had begun to separate and could sometimes only be properly read from a distance. The exact imitation of form was being replaced by the suggestion of it: to some of his contemporaries, therefore, his paintings began to look unfinished. It was from the Venetians that he had learned to use a brown ground so that his paintings emerged from dark to light, physically as well as spiritually. Yet, despite a palette that was limited even by seventeenth century standards, he was renowned as a colorist for he managed to maintain a precarious balance between painting tonally, with light and shade, and painting in color. Just as form was suggested rather than delineated, so the impression of rich color was deceptive. Never before had a painter taken such a purely sensuous interest and delight in the physical qualities of his medium, nor granted it a greater measure of independence from the image.
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Waldemar Januszczak in Techniques of the Great Masters of Art

 

Rembrandt

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As for the value of color I am close to the philosophy of Fauvists: Matisse, Raoul Dufy, and Vlaminck. In other words, color for me is the most important constituent of painting. The composition and form extract themselves from the depth of color. My colors are the spirit of my paintings. For example, when the space is sad it is my pallet of colors that convey this sadness first.

 

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