ABSTRACT
The three-dimensional, sculpted surfaces of paintings by Rembrandt and Velázquez reveal traces of manual labor. The medium of the rough style is made of thick paint and layered surfaces, and its method visible strokes of the brush, the imprint of the hand, the mark of tools, and the impact of drops of paint scattered and flung. The real, physical work of artists and apprentices subsumes in importance the depicted work of the painted figures as well as the thematically interpretive work of the viewer. Visual narratives of politics and optics coalesce in highly textured surfaces that call to mind etching as well as the crafts of woodcarving and metallurgy, and the vocations of farming and food preparation. To the extent that the work of creating art in Rembrandt’s studio was a cooperative effort, and in the sense that sculpting of paint calls to mind not merely his etching, but more broadly the late medieval, early Renaissance craft and guild tradition—something to be transcended by the courtly art of painting—the sense of touch renders political the handling of paint as a subject as well as a technique of early modern art. Visible clues as to the manner of tactile manipulation of paint call attention to the manner and mode of artistic expression and reception, allowing the fact of the medium to compete with the significance of the tasks of the painted subjects as well as the contemplation of the viewing subject. The effect of the rough style is to invite the viewers to participate in their own creation just as they are implicated in the ideological decisions of the artist.
