In between looking for a new job I’ve been trying to keep myself busy (doing some more reviews for different places, sadly not paying ones though, those are very had to get hold of now), and going out to make sure I don’t spend too much time at home alone (way, way to easy to brood and let the little black voice hold sway). So after scouring the job sites this morning again (fruitlessly) I headed out to the Royal Scottish Academy to take in the Rembrandt exhibition with a chum, and I am glad I did.

The exhibition had a number of works, from small sketches and some of his print work to his famous portraits, later works influenced by Rembrandt, and of course those amazing self-portraits. The latter are still astonishing, centuries on, not just for the raw humanity they show, painted at different eras of the artist’s life, but for the remarkable techniques, the sense of three dimensional reality. Seeing the original painting of this one above was just magical, the sense of a real person, even the textures – I had to restrain the urge to run my fingers across the section depicting his cap, it looked as if you could actually feel the velvet (naturally I didn’t, the gallery wouldn’t care for that). Some works just retain their power across the centuries…