TWT #257 –

On September 14th, 1975, The Night Watch, a famous 15th century Rembrandt painting, was attacked and slashed with a bread knife by an unemployed school teacher.

Rembrandt is one of the most famous painters in the world, and considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art.

His iconic painting The Night Watch is revered the world over for its use of light & shadow, it’s perception of motion, and the fact that it is MASSIVE.

Seriously, the dudes painted here are nearly life-size.

So why do (unemployed) people hate The Night Watch so much?

This painting has been attacked on 3 separate occasions over the years.

In January 1911, a shoemaker who couldn’t find enough work slashed the painting with a knife.

In April of 1990 some guy escaped from a psychiatric facility and sprayed acid all over Rembrandt’s piece.

But we’re talking about September 14th, 1975, exactly 44 years ago today when an unemployed teacher attacked The Night Watch with a knife, making several huge cuts into the piece.

This teacher, Wilhelmus de Rijk, said he “did it for the Lord”…he never really clarified ~which~ Lord though… And apparently Wilhelmus didn’t get charged with a crime, but he DID kill himself less than a year later (so maybe we can argue that the painting killed him, a la Velvet Buzzsaw?)

Alas, after this (unemployed) school teacher taught us all how to destroy art and creativity, it took over 4 years to fully restore Rembrandt’s painting.

So why has this piece of art been so targeted by crazies?

If I had to make a real guess here, all of those people trying to destroy this painting were deeply, irreversibly, and profoundly disturbed by this lil’ ol’ lady in the background

I’m tempted to destroy her as well.

p.s. more recently, in July of 2019, the Rijksmuseum museum has launched a years-long project to fully restore The Night Watch, and if you want to watch some boring videos of that restoration you can do so here

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