Popular Reception
A persistent misconception has it that Rembrandt's decline in popularity was due to a negative public reception of the painting. The myth has even made its way into modern advertising; in 1967 KLM featured the painting in an advertisement which said "See Night Watch, Rembrandt's spectacular 'failure' (that caused him to be) hooted... down the road to bankruptcy". The myth has no reasonable origin: there is no record of criticism of the painting in Rembrandt's lifetime, and Captain Cocq even had a watercolor made of it for his personal album.
The decline in the artist's popularity was likely due not to reaction to any one painting, but to a broader change in taste. During the 1640s wealthy patrons began to prefer the bright colors and graceful manner that had been initiated by such painters as the Flemish portraitist Anthony van Dyck.
Read more about this topic: The Night Watch
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or reception:
“For those that love the world serve it in action,
Grow rich, popular and full of influence,
And should they paint or write, still it is action:
The struggle of the fly in marmalade.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)