Through Rembrandt's Eyes

The most spellbinding portraiture to date was surely Rembrandt's. In the following examples, the depiction of the sitter's gaze draws us into a variety of intense silent dialogue.

This gaze is remarkable in its eerie ability to look at directly at the viewer, almost as if "sizing" us up.

This early self portrait is a perfect study of a contemplative "lost in thought" gaze that I have ever witnessed.

And in this, dear reader, the elderly Rembrandt has limned such an intense and gripping melancholy that has been the sublime ideal of aesthetics throughout the ages. This is simply nonpareil drama.