ABSTRACT
Rembrandt’s oeuvre occupies an exceptional place within the history of Russian culture, its Jewish component in particular. The memoirs and biographical studies of Jewish artists who worked in imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, as well as an analysis of their works, reveal not only the influence of Rembrandt’s paintings and prints during the formation of their creative identity, but an enduring, lifelong veneration. From the late nineteenth century on, when academic canons were shaken, the great Dutchman’s authority as an artist has proved unassailable. Many of Rembrandt’s images resonate with profound personal impressions in the lives of artists who, in one way or another, translated and interpreted his art in their own programmatic works, and with their “Jewish experience.”
