Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is an upcoming American science fiction film directed by Matt Reeves and starring Andy Serkis,Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, and Keri Russell. It is the sequel to the 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes and is scheduled for release on July 11, 2014.

Plot[edit]

Eight years after the events of the first film, a growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier. They reach a fragile peace, but it proves short-lived, as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth's dominant species.^[2]

Cast[edit]

Humans[edit]

• Gary Oldman as Dreyfus
• Jason Clarke as Malcolm
• Keri Russell as TBA, Malcolm's partner
• Kodi Smit-McPhee as TBA, Malcolm's son
• J. D. Evermore as Sniper
• Jocko Sims as Werner
• John R. Mangus as Dreyfus' Officer
• Rebekah Jean Morgan as Colony Member
• Duane Cothren as Armed Colony Member (uncredited)
• Mustafa Harris as Officer #1

Apes[edit]

• Andy Serkis as Caesar
• Judy Greer as Cornelia
• Terry Notary as Rocket
• Karin Konoval as Maurice
• Toby Kebbell as Koba
• Nick Thurston as River, Caesar and Cornelia's teenage son
• Larramie "Doc" Shaw as Ash

Currently unknown[edit]

• Kirk Acevedo as Carver
• Lucky Johnson as Rationer
• Richard King as Stoned
• Enrique Murciano as TBA

Production[edit]

Development[edit]

After the release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, director Rupert Wyatt commented on possible sequels: "I think we're ending with certain questions, which is quite exciting. To me, I can think of all sorts of sequels to this film, but this is just the beginning."^[3] Screenwriter and producer Rick Jaffa also stated that Rise of the Planet of the Apes featured several clues as to future sequels: "I hope that we're building a platform for future films. We're trying to plant a lot of the seeds for a lot of the things you are talking about in terms of the different apes and so forth."^[4]

In an interview recorded after the release of Rise, Wyatt stated that "We want to grow and evolve, in the films that will [hopefully] come after this, to the '68 original."^[5] Wyatt also stated that he wants it to take place eight years after the original, as a whole new ape generation can be born, and explore the dynamics of Caesar and Koba's relationship.^[6]According to screenwriter Rick Jaffa, a version of the spaceship from the 1968 Planet of the Apes under the name Icarus was in Rise as a deliberate hint to a possible sequel.^[7]

In November 3 2011, Andy Serkis was the first to be announced as having closed a deal for a sequel to Rise. It was reported to be a "healthy seven-figure deal" for him to reprise his role as Caesar, the ape leader.^[8] On May 15, 2012, it was announced Scott Z. Burns had been hired to do rewrites on the original screenplay by Rise writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.^[9] On May 31, 2012, 20th Century Fox announced that the sequel, now titled Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, was scheduled for release on May 23, 2014.^[10]

On September 17, 2012, there were reports that director Rupert Wyatt was considering leaving the sequel due to his concern that a May 2014 release date would not give him enough time to make the film properly.^[11] On October 1, Matt Reeves, director of Cloverfield, was confirmed as his replacement.^[12] Reeves had been working on developing a newThe Twilight Zone film.^[13] On October 18, Mark Bomback, writer of Live Free or Die Hard, was reported to be doing a re-write for Reeves.^[14] It was announced on June 20, 2013 that the release date for Dawn was being pushed back two months to July 18, 2014.^[15] On December 10, 2013, the film was pushed up one week to July 11, 2014.^[16]

Casting[edit]

In December 2012, after the departure of director Rupert Wyatt, James Franco speculated he will not be returning for the sequel, saying "Now Rupert's not a part of it so I don't know. My guess is I won't be in it. Nobody's talked to me since Rupert left."^[17]

In February 2013, actors Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke and Kodi Smit-McPhee were cast in lead roles and the film set 15 years after the events from the first film.^[18][19] In March 2013, actress Keri Russell was cast in a role.^[20] That same month, Judy Greer was cast as Cornelia, a female chimp and love interest for Caesar.^[21] Toby Kebbell, Enrique Murciano and Kirk Acevedo joined the cast during filming.^[2] On May 15, 2013, Jocko Sims was cast in a supporting role of military operative Werner.^[22]

Filming[edit]

Filming began in April 2013 around the town of Campbell River, British Columbia.^[23] The location of Vancouver Island was chosen for its similarity to the locations depicted in the film, the forests, and the variety of landscapes.^[24] Filming in New Orleans started in May 2013 and continues in July 2013 at various locations such as the former Six Flags park Six Flags New Orleans.^[25
]

Leonardo da Vinci’s groundbreaking anatomical sketches

Alastair Sooke looks through the ultimate Renaissance man’s anatomical sketchbooks – scientific masterpieces full of lucid insights into the functioning of the human body.

We tend to think of Leonardo da Vinci as a painter, even though he probably produced no more than 20 pictures before his death in 1519. Yet for long periods of his career, which lasted for nearly half a century, he was engrossed in all sorts of surprising pursuits, from stargazing and designing ingenious weaponry to overseeing a complex system of canals for Ludovico Maria Sforza, the ruling duke of Milan. During the course of his life, Leonardo filled thousands of pages of manuscript with dense doodles, diagrams, and swirling text, probing almost every conceivable topic. Not for nothing, then, is he often considered the archetypal Renaissance man: as the great British art historian Kenneth Clark put it, Leonardo was the most relentlessly curious person in history.

Yet according to Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man, a new exhibition at the Edinburgh International Festival, one area of scientific endeavour piqued Leonardo’s curiosity arguably more than any other: human anatomy.

Leonardo’s interest in anatomy began when he was working for Ludovico in Milan. “On the 2nd day of April 1489”, as he wrote at the head of a page in a new notebook, he sat down to begin his “Book entitled On the Human Figure”. After executing a sequence of stunning drawings of a skull, though, his studies went into abeyance, probably because he lacked access to corpses that he could dissect.

Bodies of evidence

But his ambitions to publish a comprehensive treatise on human anatomy persisted – and around two decades later, he returned to his otherwise unused notebook, which is now known as the Anatomical Manuscript B and is kept at the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. In it he made a number of pen-and-ink drawings recording his observations while dissecting an old man who had died in a hospital in Florence in the winter of 1507-08.

In the years that followed, Leonardo concentrated on human anatomy more systematically than ever before – and by the end of his life he claimed that he had cut up more than 30 corpses. In the winter of 1510-11, while probably collaborating with a young professor of anatomy called Marcantonio della Torre at the University of Pavia, Leonardo compiled a series of 18 mostly double-sided sheets exploding with more than 240 individual drawings and over 13,000 words of notes. Now known as the Anatomical Manuscript A, and also in the Royal Collection, these sheets are full of lucid insights into the functioning anatomy of the human body.

Leonardo made many important discoveries. For instance, he produced the first accurate depiction of the human spine, while his notes documenting his dissection of the Florentine centenarian contain the earliest known description of cirrhosis of the liver. Had he published his treatise, he would be considered more important than the Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius, whose influential textbook On the Fabric of the Human Body appeared in 1543. But he never did.

Heart of the matter

Yet arguably Leonardo’s most brilliant scientific insights occurred after Marcantonio’s death from the plague in 1511, when the great polymath fled political turmoil in Milan and took shelter in the family villa of his assistant Francesco Melzi, 15 miles (24km) east of the city. It was here that he became obsessed with understanding the structure of the heart.

The heart surgeon Francis Wells, who works at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge and recently published The Heart of Leonardo, recalls coming across Leonardo’s studies for the first time as a medical student. “I remember thinking that they were far better than anything we had in modern textbooks of anatomy,” he says. “They were beautiful, accurate, absorbing – and there was a liveliness to them that you just don’t find in modern anatomical drawings.”

During his investigations, Leonardo discovered several extraordinary things about the heart. “Up until and after his time, because of course he never published, the heart was believed to be a two-chambered structure,” Wells explains. “But Leonardo firmly stated that the heart has four chambers. Moreover, he discovered that the atria or filling chambers contract together while the pumping chambers or ventricles are relaxing, and vice versa.”

In addition, Leonardo observed the heart’s rotational movement. “If you look at a heart, it is cone-shaped,” says Wells. “But it’s a complex cone in a geometric sense, because it’s a cone with a twist. This is because the heart empties itself with a twisting motion – it wrings itself out, a bit like the wringing out of a towel. In heart failure it loses this twist.”

According to Wells, Leonardo didn’t fully understand the function of cardiac twist. “But everything starts somewhere,” he says. “There’s a passage in which Leonardo describes the slaughter of some pigs on a Tuscan hillside. You or I would probably enjoy a nice glass of red wine while the pork was cooking, but Leonardo was thinking about this at the time. They killed the pigs by pushing little spears through the chest into the heart, and Leonardo noticed the rotational movement of these little spears in the heart. It was totally blue-sky research, of no use to anybody of his time, but it was a correct start along the road to understanding cardiac twist, which is now one of the hottest topics in understanding heart failure.”

Perhaps most impressive of all, though, were Leonardo’s observations about the aortic valve, which he made while experimenting with an ox’s heart. Intrigued by the way that the aortic valve opens and closes to ensure blood flows in one direction, Leonardo set about constructing a model by filling a bovine heart with wax. Once the wax had hardened, he recreated the structure in glass, and then pumped a mixture of grass seeds suspended in water through it. This allowed him to observe little vortices as the seeds swirled around in the widening at the root of the aorta. As a result, Leonardo correctly posited that these vortices helped to close the aortic valve. Yet because he never published his far-sighted research, this remained unknown for centuries.

“This wasn’t understood until the 20th Century,” says Wells, “when it was shown most beautifully in [science journal] Nature in 1968 by two engineers in Oxford. There was only reference to Leonardo da Vinci. There are two extraordinary things about that: first, there was only one reference, and second, the reference was 500 years old.”

So what made Leonardo such a brilliant anatomist? “One mustn’t get carried away claiming that Leonardo was a completely unique figure,” says Martin Clayton, head of prints and drawings in the Royal Collection, and the curator of the Edinburgh exhibition. “There were lots of investigative anatomists around at the time, and there were lots of artists who were interested in anatomy. But Leonardo pushed these two things further than anybody else. He was the supreme example of an anatomist who could also draw, or of an artist who was also a very skilled dissector. It was the union of these two skills in a single figure that made Leonardo unique.”

Is traditional fashion photography finished?

New technology is shaking things up in style photography. Philippa Warr speaks to legendary photographer Nick Knight about the radical shifts taking place.

"Fashion photography has changed."

World-famous image-maker Nick Knight is telling me how smartphones and advances in image-editing apps are fundamentally altering his line of work, perhaps even rendering traditional fashion photography obsolete. Technological advances are opening up image capture and manipulation to a wider audience, enabling big budget effects on everyday devices, while behind the scenes the power balance between model and magazine is shifting.

Knight makes a case for photography − as we understand it − being over. His point is that it used to be relatively straightforward. "The image-making I do now is no longer defined by any of those parameters," he says "I've argued strongly for the last ten years or more that we have to say photography is finished − it isn't the medium we use anymore."

Of course, photography still exists, but for Knight it's no longer the medium we turn to when we want to communicate visually. "There's a new medium called image-making which behaves in a completely different way, is done by completely different equipment and is expressed in completely different chemicals and minerals."

He's referring to devices like smartphones and applications like Instagram, which allow for near-instant image editing; and can be shared immediately with a massive global audience.

"Accessible yet still magical," is how Justin Cooke describes Instagram and the work which appears on it. Cooke is now CEO of the agencyInnovate7 but used to work as vice president of PR at Burberry. He was part of a team who met with Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram. Adoption of the app by Burberry while Instagram was still up-and-coming was vital in keeping the brand ahead of the competition, according to Cooke.

"Instagram was one of those apps that come up every so often like Twitter or Glitché or Mega Photo that allows you to do at the click of a button what before would have taken a long time," says Knight. "I like it because I'm not someone whose primary way of expressing themself is through writing."

Back to the future

The imagery Knight now creates is often shot directly on his iPhone and then run through a selection of image-editing apps − the aforementioned Mega Photo and Glitché being favourites − or traditional Photoshop (as with his beautiful images seen in the catalogue of Somerset House in London’s exhibtion Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore!). Knight’s images are then uploaded to his Instagram account.

"It took me back, in a weird way, to the beginnings of my love of photography in the 1970s. I could create something from the world around me, but of course you have to go through the whole process of having the film developed, printing it in the darkroom and finding somewhere to show it. That bit has been super-accelerated."

This acceleration suits the internet well. As Knight points out, most people get their style information online now, and that makes it the most appropriate medium for publishing fashion images − far more so than traditional magazines. Clothes are ultimately designed with movement in mind – and the possibilities of image-making – and video −stretch beyond those offered in print.

Out of print?

The changing nature of fashion photography, and photography in general, will affect traditional practitioners and has (unsurprisingly) been met with resistance from some. "There's a certain amount of very understandable reluctance," says Knight. "Where there is a sense of fear is from people who are going to be put out of work by it or who are going to have to change their way of thinking" − magazine promoters, for example, whose job it is to lionise print.

Models, however, stand to benefit greatly from the changes. Traditionally models have been beholden to magazines for work and for exposure but at this point Cara Delevingne has over three million followers on her Instagram account; Kim Kardashian has eleven million.

"I don't think it's sunk in to the models yet but they have the balance of power now," says Knight. "That power shift is something that's fundamental and will change how we perceive people and how the whole system operates." Once the power shift is understood the models will likely have a very different relationship with the fashion publications that sell perhaps a couple of hundred thousand copies. "The models can say, 'Wait a minute, by a factor of a hundred you should be working for me'. So it changes things a lot."

What are the limitations of smartphone photography? As an enthusiast and an earlier adopter Knight has had time to critically assess the options available through the App Store and elsewhere. I ask what, in an ideal world, he would like to add to his current smartphone toolkit. The answer, surprisingly, goes back to traditional photography.

"The default [on smartphones] is a wide angle lens − that's fine for certain sorts of photography or certain sorts of image making. You can see why people did it: 'I want to take a picture of my friend sitting in the car seat opposite me and if I've got a wide-angle lens I can get most of my friend in’." But it's not ideal for all situations and can also create distortions.

Knight's observation highlights just how young this medium is. There is a plentiful supply of apps designed to paper over the limitations of smartphone cameras and even more which achieve effects and circulation boosts either impossible or hugely time consuming with traditional cameras. But there are also technical developments needed − for example, in the realms of lens-making − before the full extent of the repercussions on traditional fashion photography can be known.

As Knight sees it, the image making we have now is an area ripe for invention and marked by the capacity for innovation. As he says, "It hasn't defined itself yet."

Why are Christmas jumpers in fashion?

Holiday sweaters and novelty knits are the height of fashion this season. But how did they make the switch from cheesy to cool?

There was a time when no right-thinking fashion follower would have gone anywhere near a novelty Christmas jumper – sartorially, it was considered firmly beyond the acceptable boundaries of good taste. Now, the festive wooly or ‘it knit’ is not only the last word among the fashion cognoscenti, but it has also spread seamlessly into the mainstream. Comedy snowmen, skiing polar bears, dancing Santas – there is now no escape.

In stores and online this winter is a vast – some might say overwhelming − variety of the cute, the kitsch and the wacky, all flying off the shelves. On the high street, Topshop is offering a range of ‘fun but chic’ options including a sequin-bow number. Elsewhere, there are jaunty elves, prancing reindeer, laughing Christmas puddings, sequins, glitter, flashing LED lights and much, much more.

Marginally less gaudy but also hugely popular is the Nordic or Fair Isle look, popularised by the Danish TV detective series The Killing, in which cult figure Sarah Lund’s Faroese pullover became a star in its own right. With a nostalgic, hand-knitted feel, this style of pullover is also not without its fair share of festive snowflake or reindeer motifs.

Knit picks

Perhaps inevitably the flamboyant Christmas woolly has been embraced by the look-at-me, Instagram generation, which has helped to spread the Christmas-jumper love. Needless to say, festive-sweater selfies are de rigeur this year − usually done with a strong sense of irony and a raised eyebrow. As a trend, it is now bigger even than the ubiquitous onesie − another novelty garment that has been improbably championed by the fashion pack.

The festive jumper began life in the last century, sported by crooners Val Doonican and Andy Williams on their Christmas television specials. It rose in popularity again during the 1980s, and then in North America in the early 2000s when the ‘ugly-Christmas-sweater party’ took off, with guests competing to wear the most hideous garment. The festive-knit frenzy spread fast, with fans searching in vintage stores for ugly-jumper perfection.

In the UK, it wasn’t until 2001 that the festive sweater reared its ugly head, in the film Bridget Jones’s Diary. In a scene at a holiday family party, Mark Darcy (played by Colin Firth) turns to greet Bridget. He is wearing a startlingly unattractive knitted garment emblazoned with a giant red-nosed reindeer head. Bridget is appalled, though later the lovely Darcy is vindicated when it transpires that the jumper had been a Christmas gift from an elderly relative rather than his own choice. As Bridget might have put it: Phew!

So how did this once-despised and embarrassing item – only tolerated because it was a gift from grandma − become such a sought-after look? Well, the fashion world has been having a love affair with kitsch for a while now, and so was already primed – ‘statement’ jumpers and sweatshirts featuring cartoonish motifs have been a reliably hot look for a few seasons. The Christmas ‘it knit’ was inevitable.

As designer Markus Lupfer, who has created luxury, hand-sequined, motif knitwear for several years, puts it: “The Christmas theme just works so well with the sparkly element, and people react really well to them, so we bring them back each year with a new version. They are light-hearted and fun and also a little bit special − they are a definite conversation starter. And they make you smile.”

Editor of UK fashion magazine Glamour, Jo Elvin agrees. If done with good humour, the boundary between good and bad taste can blur successfully. “In Britain we love self-deprecating humour. We love that the holidays are an excuse to eat, drink, be merry and now enjoy the cheesy tradition of a Christmas novelty knit.”And this year, UK charity Save the Children has cannily tapped into the mood, commissioning some top designers – among them Vivienne Westwood, Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, Paul Smith and Burberry − to create some bespoke festive knits as a fundraiser for their Christmas Jumper Day. Elvin is impressed by the designs: “There’s a creation for every different Christmas occasion, from a glamorous night out, to drooling on your nan's sofa after too many sherries.”

She also sees a more sincere, non-ironic meaning. “My guess is that in recent times because there has been a lot of economic doom and gloom, the collective consciousness has taken comfort in things that remind us of cosy, cheery times. And clever designers have discovered that they can pair this need with creations that are not only fun but also actually quite beautiful.”

Geek chic 

Certainly, a rose-tinted, nostalgic view of comfy Christmases past is summoned up by many of the more authentically homemade-looking, retro creations, often with a Fair Isle print. These vintage styles have long been spotted on the streets of Williamsburg, Portland and London’s East End, as worn by the occasionally-mocked but influential hipster crowd. Versions of this look are now widely available in the mainstream, for men as well as women − Jack Wills’s Barnacre crew and Ashkirk Fairisle crew have been selling fast. Other, ‘heritage’ brands − such as British country-set label Barbour − have always offered them, but have seen an increase in sales − their Martingale crew knit complete with authentic elbow patches, springs to mind.

Cathy Kasterine, fashion director-at-large at UK Harper’s Bazaar, is a fan of this Christmassy “itchy jumper” trend, as she calls it. In her view, the revived fashion interest in the look is largely down to designer Isabel Marant, purveyor of a ‘boho’ aesthetic, who for the past few years has been creating “Geeky, boyfriend jumpers that look a bit like something you’d find at a jumble sale but that are actually really well-cut and luxurious.”

“It’s a very English thing,” says Kasterine. “We like eclectic style and mixing things up to dress a look down – for example an understated jumper with a pair of sexy trousers and an amazing pair of shoes. It’s a cooler, cleverer way of dressing. If you wear everything expensive-looking, it looks a bit ‘fashion victim’.”

And what about the dancing-santas-and-reindeer end of the spectrum? What’s the appeal for the fashionista there? “With some fashion people who Instagram themselves in their Christmas jumper, they are kind of saying ‘Look at me, I can wear this, and still look good, I can pull it off’,” she says wryly. “But mainly it’s just a funny thing to buy – it’s silly. And Christmas can be quite traumatic, so we all need a laugh.”

Are Auerbach and Bacon Rembrandt’s artistic heirs?

A new exhibition places Auerbach paintings alongside the Dutch master’s. Alastair Sooke reveals how the 17th Century painter has influenced modern artists.

In the summer of 1962, the American photographer Irving Penn created a memorable black-and-white portrait of the British painter Francis Bacon. Taken in the artist’s studio in a former coach house in South Kensington in London, it presents Bacon’s plump and unshaven moon face seen in close-up from an unusually low angle. Stuck to the wall immediately behind Bacon’s head is a paint-spattered reproduction of a self-portrait by the 17th Century Dutch master, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn. Penn’s image establishes a connection between the two artists that is plain for all to see. Rembrandt was a touchstone for Bacon, just as he was for many modern and contemporary artists, including the British painter Frank Auerbach, who in his youth moved in the same bohemian circles as Bacon.

On 12 December, Raw Truth, a new exhibition of six important 1960s oil paintings by Auerbach shown alongside four artworks by Rembrandt, opened in the Gallery of Honour in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It was organised in collaboration with London’s Ordovas gallery, which also staged an exhibition examining the links between Bacon and Rembrandt in 2011.

At first glance, Auerbach’s pictures from the ‘60s – thick, craggy agglomerations of oil paint that verge on abstraction – appear radically different from anything produced by Rembrandt. As for Bacon, his artistic debt to Rembrandt is not as immediately obvious as it is to, say, Van Gogh or Velázquez, both of whom he quoted directly in his paintings – something he never did with Rembrandt. So what was it about their Dutch predecessor that fired the imaginations of both Bacon and Auerbach?

Frank Auerbach, Head of E.O.W (Frank Auerbach, Courtesy Marlborough Fine Art)

For the art historian Taco Dibbits, director of collections at the Rijksmuseum, the answer lies in Rembrandt’s ability to penetrate to the core of his subject, no matter who or what he was painting. “Over the centuries, Rembrandt has inspired artists in different ways,” Dibbits tells me. “Something that has fascinated a lot of artists is the way he depicts different humours, different moods, different psychologies. There is such depth to his personalities: the essence of his genius is that rather than trying to make people more beautiful than they are, he depicts them as they really are. That makes his portraits immensely humane and approachable – unlike, say, classic Italian portraits, which are far more aloof and less direct. Rembrandt didn’t try to please his subjects or the viewer. With Rembrandt, you are looking at real people.”

Unvarnished

This quality of Rembrandt’s “raw truth” – to use a phrase coined by Auerbach – ensured the Dutchman’s enduring influence. And there was nobody about whom Rembrandt was more honest than himself: over four decades from the late 1620s until the year of his death in 1669, he produced a remarkable series of around 60 unsparing self-portraits. A reproduction of one of these in which he wears a beret, painted circa 1659 and now in the collection of the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, is visible in the background of Penn’s photograph of Bacon, who, inspired by Rembrandt, executed more than 40 self-portraits of his own.

“Rembrandt was crucial to Bacon in terms of mark-making and the handling of paint,” explains Pilar Ordovas of the Ordovas gallery in London. “But he also provided the motivation to make self-portraits. Painting a self-portrait is one of the hardest things to do for an artist – to detach from yourself and be credible and convincing when you are not painting a stranger but yourself. Also, technically it is much harder, because you are looking at yourself through a mirror, and you cannot go around and work as you would from another sitter.”

Francis Bacon with self-portrait (Corbis Images)

Like Rembrandt’s moving late self-portraits, such as Self-Portrait with Two Circles (c. 1665) in London’s Kenwood House, in which the artist depicts himself buffeted by the experiences of his life, Bacon’s self-portraits have a merciless, unsettling aspect. They are unafraid to stare head-on at the spectre of physical disintegration. According to the scholar Martin Harrison, who is editing a catalogue of his works, Bacon was fond of quoting a saying of the French poet and artist Jean Cocteau: “Each day in the mirror I watch death at work.” This comes across in Bacon’s self-portraits, in which his face often looks mangled or bruised, as though it is rotting before our eyes.

Although artists have always held Rembrandt in high esteem, his reputation as his country’s greatest painter has not been so assured. During the 18th and 19th Centuries, connoisseurs preferred his pupil Gerrit Dou. “Rembrandt was criticised during his lifetime for not following the rules of painting that the Italians had set out,” explains Dibbits. “People complained that he didn’t go to Italy to learn the lessons of classical sculpture and painting.”

Yet perhaps his irreverence towards the received way of doing things is partly what recommended him to artists such as Bacon and Auerbach in the first place. “I think about Rembrandt and Picasso, they are the two people that I have looked at most,” says Auerbach, who was photographed in his studio by Lord Snowdon in the early 1960s in front of a wall decorated with reproductions of Rembrandt’s art. While it is unsurprising to hear Auerbach cite Picasso as an influence, it is strange to think that a painter born in Leiden in 1606 could be a forefather of modern art. As Penn’s portrait of Bacon reminds us, though, for artists during the 20th Century, Rembrandt felt more like a contemporary than an ancestor.