The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam invites you to compare Caravaggio and Rembrandt. For an overview of Rembrandt's work here are Rembrandt van Rijn: Life and Work and A Web Catalogue of Rembrandt Paintings. For Caravaggio there's caravaggio.com which makes use of the Italian website Tutta l'opera del Caravaggio.
posted by Kattullus on Aug 6, 2009 - 13 comments

In the 17th century Dutch painters began to create informal paintings that focused on the features and/or expressions of anonymous people. These were called tronies. Although a tronie showed a person’s face, it wasn’t considered a portrait. [...] In 1995 Dutch photographer Hendrik Kerstens began a series of tronies featuring his daughter Paula. some images NSFW
posted by xod on May 22, 2008 - 35 comments

Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits. No one knows why Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn began painting half-length portraits of religious figures late in his life. The subject was uncommon in Protestant Amsterdam, where he lived. Paintings and sculptures, deemed idolatrous by Luther's followers, were not permitted in churches; existing images were removed and often destroyed. In 1681, a local authority described Rembrandt as the "foremost heretic in the art of painting." In Los Angeles, the Getty Center brings together, for the first time, 16 of these mysterious paintings. More inside.
posted by matteo on Jun 18, 2005 - 11 comments

Thema: Passion Very good German site with depictions of the Passion of the Christ in the history of the art, from El Greco to Antonello da Messina, from Il Guercino to Botticelli. And there also, among many others, Rembrandt and Schiele and Rubens and Caravaggio Plenty of other good links here. As Bernard Berenson wrote, "A painter’s first business is to rouse the tactile sense, for I must have the illusion... (more inside)
posted by matteo on Apr 13, 2004 - 7 comments