Did Rembrandt Have Help With His Most Famous Paintings?

Rembrandt van Rijn was the definition of an “old master”—a painter so deft, his portraits seem to leap from the canvas. But how did he achieve his effects in a time long before projectors, computers and other 21st-century tools? The answer to that question could be boiled down to one word: science. As Steph Yin reports for The New York Times, new research suggests that Rembrandt may have relied on complex optics while he painted. Read more