Abstract
This is the second article on reading-based appreciation of Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch (1642).” In the first article, the author proposed a seven-stage learning program and discussed the first and third stages: observation and interpretation. Here he considers the second, fourth and seventh stages: formal analysis, the supplementation of knowledge including the provision of information and replenishment subjects. He selects the painterly quality of oil paints and the structural features of composition as main themes of the second stage and mentions that in even formal state, a path leading to grasping subject exists. The issues of the fourth stage are art historical backgrounds, iconographical examinations and episodes. He learned a lot from a collaboration by Satoko Fujii and Naomi Kajiki, which is a cross-disciplinary class practice between history and art. Then he explains how to interpret “The Night Watch” from the iconographical perspective and researches the function of episode. In his opinion, episode plays an ancillary roll on understanding artwork, but sometimes relates to its essential sides. At last he shows his concepts on five topics in the seventh stage, which are an East-West comparison, listening to a painting, searching Rembrandt’s self-portrait, role-playing and shooting a dealigned commemorative class photography.
