TOEFL integrated writing: Dutch painter Rembrandt

The reading passage casts doubts whether some paintings attributed to Rembrandt were actually painted by him especially, the one, which represents the women’s face and also says that there are problems with the painting that suggest it could not be a work by Rembrandt. However, the listening passage doesn’t agree with that and a panel of experts after detail examination of his works concluded that these paintings are truly made by the Rembrandt especially the women’s face. Here are the following reasons given by the listening passage:

Firstly, in the x-rays it showed that originally women was not wearing a fur- collar coat. in fact as the professor says that it was made on the painting after 100 years when the painting was originally made because someone wanted to increase the value of the painting of an Aristocratic lady.

Secondly, the lecture says that after the paint was removed from the painting which revealed that the light and shadow are both reflective in the painting already. In the original painting Rembrandt had made a simple light colored cloth that reflects light and illuminates the women’s face and that is why women’s face was not partially in shadow. Thus, in original painting light and shadow were very realistic.

Lastly, when the fur collar was added in the original painting the wood panel with glued that was used in the painting in order to enlarge that painting and making it grand and also to increase the value of the painting. However, the original painting was made from single wood piece of wood. In fact the researchers have found that a piece of wood that was used in the original painting of an elderly women was made from the same wood of tree as wood panel would used for the other paintings of Rembrandt his self portrait with a hat.