Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (July 15, 1606 – October 4, 1669) is generally considered one of the greatest painters in European art history and the most important United Provinces (Netherlands) painter of the seventeenth century.

A medical analysis of Rembrandt's art talent

In an article published on September 16, 2004 in The New England Journal of Medicine, Margaret S. Livingstone, professor of neurobiology of Harvard Medical School, suggests that Rembrandt, whose eyes failed to align correctly, suffered from stereo blindness. She made this conclusion after studying 36 of Rembrandt's self-portraits.

Related Topics:
September 16 - 2004 - New England Journal of Medicine - Margaret S. Livingstone - Neurobiology - Harvard Medical School - Eye - Stereo blindness

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Because he could not form a normal binocular vision, his brain automatically switched to one eye for many visual tasks. This disability could have helped him to flatten images as he saw, and then put it onto the two-dimensional canvas. In the author's words, this could have been a gift to a great painter like him:

Related Topics:
Binocular vision - Brain - Two-dimensional - Canvas

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: Art teachers often instruct students to close one eye in order to flatten what they see. Therefore, stereo blindness might not be a handicap — and might even be an asset — for some artists.

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