Who is Rembrandt van Ryn from Ways of Seeing and what is their importance?

Rembrandt van Ryn was an oil painter who lived from 1606-1609. He is one of the exceptional masters, whose principles are not incorporated but rather imitated by others. Rembrandt's struggle to become a great artist is evident in the transition of his work over time. For example, over a thirty-year period, from twenty-eight to fifty-eight, Rembrandt paints two self-portraits. His first self-portrait is created in the year of his first marriage with his wife. The self-portrait is of a smiling, joyful happy couple with himself and his wife Saskia. His work then is in the traditional style and methods to show their happy exuberance and pleasure that Berger considers a heartless advertisement. His wife dies in six years. Thirty years later Rembrandt paints a second self-portrait. He paints himself as an old man in this example, questioning his own existence. His work evolves to an individualistic style portraying his soul far from the traditional style and methods of the earlier work. Rembrandt's second example asks questions the genre excludes by traditional design.