Rembrandt is the most famous of the seventeenth-century Dutch painters. However, there are doubts whether some paintings attributed to Rembrandt were actually painted by him. One such painting is known as attributed to Rembrandt because of its style, and indeed the representation of the woman’s face is very much like that of portraits known to be by Rembrandt. But there are problems with the painting that suggest it could not be a work by Rembrandt.
First, there is something inconsistent about the way the woman in the portrait is dressed. She is wearing a white linen cap of a kind that only servants would wear-yet the coat she is wearing has a luxurious fur collar that no servant could afford. Rembrandt, who was known for his attention to the details of his subjects’ clothing, would not have been guilty of such an inconsistency.
Second, Rembrandt was a master of painting light and shadow, but in this painting these elements do not fit together. The face appears to be illuminated by light reflected onto it from below. But below the face is the dark fur collar, which would absorb light rather than reflect it. So the face should appear partially in shadow-which is not how it appears. Rembrandt would never have made such an error.
Finally, examination of the back of the painting reveals that it was painted on a panel made of several pieces of wood glued together. Although Rembrandt often painted on wood panels, no painting known to be by Rembrandt uses a panel glued together in this way from several pieces of wood.
Questions:
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
The author in the reading states that Rembrandt was one of the most famous painters, but he doubts whether some paintings attributed to him were actually painted by him. He provides three supporting reasons for this claim. The woman in the lecture refutes the author's claim and each of his reasons.
First of all, the reading states that Rembrandt was known for his attention to details in a painting and this painting contains inconsistency errors which raises doubt on the originallity of the painting. To this the woman states that inconsistency in the painting known as "Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet" is observed as a result of repainting. She supports this by saying that a recent xray proved that the fur collar in the painting was painted on top of the original painting just to increase the value of the painting and thus, explains the inconsistency in the dress in the painting.
Second of all, the reading states that Rembrandt was a master of painting light and shadow but no such signs of expertise were present in this painting. The woman refutes this by mentioning that the original painting had the woman wearing a dress with light color which actually reflected the light on her face. This illuminated the woman's face and make it look realistic. An actual error might have occured on repainting when the fur collar was added.
Finally, the reading posits that when an examination of the back of the painting was conducted it turns out that the wood panel was glued and cosists of several pieces. The woman, however states that the painting was performed on a single block of wood originally. Later, few pieces of wood were glued to the painting to make it enormous and grand to increase its value. She also states that it was observed that the wood originally used for the painting and the wood used by Rembrandt for another painting "Self-portrait with hit" was indeed from the same tree.
To conclude, the woman in the lecture states that the painting is actually painted by Rembrandt and thus, refutes each of the author's reasons.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, finally, first, however, look, second, so, thus, as a result, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 10.4613686534 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 7.30242825607 151% => OK
Relative clauses : 17.0 12.0772626932 141% => OK
Pronoun: 34.0 22.412803532 152% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 48.0 30.3222958057 158% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 5.01324503311 40% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1751.0 1373.03311258 128% => OK
No of words: 357.0 270.72406181 132% => OK
Chars per words: 4.90476190476 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34677393335 4.04702891845 107% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67500989857 2.5805825403 104% => OK
Unique words: 154.0 145.348785872 106% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.43137254902 0.540411800872 80% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 515.7 419.366225166 123% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.55342163355 90% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 2.0 2.5761589404 78% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 13.0662251656 115% => OK
Sentence length: 23.0 21.2450331126 108% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.6626345845 49.2860985944 113% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.733333333 110.228320801 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.8 21.698381199 110% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.33333333333 7.06452816374 90% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.27373068433 140% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.34509019779 0.272083759551 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.133105531242 0.0996497079465 134% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.143769931715 0.0662205650399 217% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.233400302113 0.162205337803 144% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0813579704828 0.0443174109184 184% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 13.3589403974 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 65.05 53.8541721854 121% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 11.0289183223 90% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.44 12.2367328918 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.7 8.42419426049 91% => OK
difficult_words: 66.0 63.6247240618 104% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 10.498013245 107% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.