In Los Angeles alone, there are no fewer than 14 paintings, a dozen drawings, and nearly 300 etchings by Rembrandt van Rijn. In this series of online lectures for the Hammer Museum, art historian, curator, and museum director John Walsh examines these works and Rembrandt’s career in detail, including recent research, surprise reappearances, and shifting opinions about the artist and his achievements.

Rembrandt’s last works have a profundity that reaches across to us from a great distance of time and culture. This lecture shows how the pictures use historical and Biblical events—or merely allusions to them—for pared-down compositions that touch the viewer with their quiet eloquence, rich color and brushwork, mysterious light, and deep feeling.