It’s the 350th anniversary of the artist’s death, and in Amsterdam, the town where he lived and worked, they’re putting on quite a show

In 1628, aged just 22, Rembrandt van Rijn created a self-portrait that marked him out for genius, and held the key to why he would become the best-known Dutchman of the seventeenth century. The painting, which is at the heart of the Rijksmuseum’s new show to mark the 350th anniversary of the artist’s death (“All the Rembrandts”, until 10 June), is immediately striking for the fact that its protagonist is hardly visible. His face is shrouded in darkness; just the tip of his nose and his right cheek are clear although, look hard enough, and his eyes slowly emerge, watching your every move.

And that, in essence, is what Rembrandt was going to spend his life doing: watching others, and telling their stories. What sucked him in, enthralled him, fixated him, inspired him, were human stories and human emotions; not for him the landscapes of so many of his contemporaries and later Dutch artists. And so his painting started with the human being he could study most closely, and who would sit for him as often as he wanted, and for free: himself. He spent hours depicting himself, and there are many examples in the Rijksmuseum’s new show, assembled from its vast collection of his work: here he is pursing his lips and staring at us wide-eyed, there he is acting the fool, in another he is frowning angrily, and in yet another he is hurt and shocked.