Explain how Rembrandt's two self-portraits, the first at age twenty-eight and the second at age fifty-eight, evolve to include content that is not conventionally found in traditional oil paintings of his time.

Rembrandt's first self-portrait is in the year of his first marriage, and includes his wife. It is a smiling, joyful, happy picture of himself and Saskia that he paints in the traditional style, using methods that illustrate their happy exuberance and pleasure, but conveys no depth of soul. In the second self-portrait, he is an old man. Rembrandt uses his own individualistic style that portrays his soul, but none of the traditional style and methods of the earlier heartless advertisement. The tradition is turned around in this second work by posing a question that the medium is traditionally designed to exclude.