Rembrandt: religious paintings
It is often said that Rembrandt was the only generalist in an age of specialists. He produced many different types of painting - portraits, religious paintings, mythologies, landscapes - while most of his contemporaries specialised in just one category, usually portraits, landscapes, still-lifes or genre. In terms of his total production, however, even Rembrandt can be seen as primarily a portrait painter who had religious painting as an important sideline. Rembrandt's decision to paint so many scenes from the Bible was certainly unusual, but Jakob Rosenberg was exaggerating when he wrote that "Rembrandt stood almost alone in his large-scale production of Biblical works" (Rosenberg 169). There were other artists, including Pieter Lastman, Jan Pynas, the Utrecht School, and Rembrandt's own pupils, who produced religious paintings, although it is only recently that these works have been properly studied, along with other neglected areas such as Dutch Italianate landscapes.
Again, it is often said that there was no market for religious art in seventeenth-century Holland because the Calvinists objected to religious imagery. It is certainly true that the Calvinists objected to religious art, which they saw as a profanation. The Calvinists' deliberate destruction of works of art in churches had been one of the factors that had caused Philip of Spain to come down so hard on the Netherlands in the late sixteenth century. But we must remember that the Calvinists were a minority, never comprising more than a third of the population, and were ultimately unable to impose their dogmas on the rest of the Dutch people. Besides Calvinists, there were other Protestant groups - such as Remonstrants, Anabaptists, Lutherans, Mennonites - a sizeable number of Catholics, and some communities of Jews. Some of these groups made use of religious art, and it is likely that most of Rembrandt's Bible scenes were painted for members of Protestant sects, especially the Mennonites.
Rembrandt's Bible scenes were probably intended for the walls of private houses, not as devotional images for churches. His pictures must have provided material for discussions on the meanings of the Bible stories, and his etchings allowed his work to be purchased by greater numbers of people. Jakob Rosenberg has shown that many of the stories depicted by Rembrandt were favourites with the Mennonites (Rosenberg 182), and this raises the question of whether it was Rembrandt or his patrons who chose the subjects of his paintings, subjects which were sometimes unusual. For example, Rembrandt painted some scenes from The Book of Tobit, a work which was important to the Mennonites but not to the Calvinists. But as Julius Held has shown, The Book of Tobit may also have had a personal meaning for Rembrandt, because it describes a close relationship between a father and son, perhaps reminding Rembrandt of his relationships with his own father and his own son, Titus (Held 121-122, 127-128). Tobit was blind, which was probably true of Rembrandt's own father in his last years, increasing Rembrandt's interest in the story. It may well be that Rembrandt was attracted to the Mennonites because he shared their belief in the importance of Bible reading and adherence to the literal words of Christ. Rembrandt's paintings seem to indicate that he had studied the Bible and given thought to ways in which the stories could be presented on canvas. In The Book of Tobit, the Angel accompanies and guides Tobias, but does not reveal himself to be a supernatural being until the very end of the story. This theme may have had some personal significance for Rembrandt, who also painted The Supper at Emmaus and The Risen Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen, in both of which Christ - like the Angel - finally reveals himself.
Rembrandt was in contact not only with the Mennonites but also with Amsterdam's Jews, some of whom were his neighbours in the St. Anthoniesbreestraat. Rich Jews from Spain and Portugal - the Sephardim - were friends and patrons of Rembrandt (Menasseh ben Israel, Ephraim Bonus), and poor Jews from Eastern Europe - the Ashkenazim - were sometimes used as models by Rembrandt. Remnrandt's use of Jewish sources is an important topic in Rembrandt studies, but one area which seems to have been overlooked is the architectural backgrounds to his paintings. For example, the depiction of the Temple at Jerusalem in the National Gallery's Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery may be
based upon the interior of a synagogue. In this painting we see a group of men with beards - the rabbis. The light source is not obvious, but appears to be coming from above, and in many synagogues the windows are set high up the wall, near the ceiling. There seem to be people sitting in a gallery, another feature of a synagogue, in which men are separated from women. There appear to be two tall cylinders standing in front of the altar, which may be containers for the sacred scrolls. Thus it seems very possible that Rembrandt had some knowledge of synagogue architecture, although we can only speculate as to how he gained this information. The main synagogue in Amsterdam - painted by Emmanuel de Witte - seems to have had big windows and columns, not at all like the cavernous building depicted in Rembrandt's painting.
A further source of patronage for Rembrandt was the Stadtholder, Frederik Hendrik, who commissioned a cycle of paintings on the Passion of Christ for his private chapel at the Hague. Frederik Hendrik and his wife, Amalia van Solms, usually patronised artists from Antwerp, who had mastered the florid, grandiose style of the Baroque. It is an interesting paradox that the Stadtholder, who drew much of his support from militant Calvinists, thought that he could advance the princely pretentions of the House of Orange by copying the artistic trappings of a Catholic Baroque monarchy. Rembrandt must have been trying to adapt his style to meet the taste of the Stadtholder. This would help to account for the very un-Rembrandtian cherubs which appear in The Ascension of Christ. It would also account for the borrowings from Rubens in The Descent from the Cross, although Rembrandt's painting was much smaller than the one by Rubens, which Rembrandt only knew through a print by Lucas Vorsterman. Even here, however, Rembrandt shows how much he differs from Rubens. Rubens' Christ is beautiful and idealised, even in death, whereas Rembrandt's Christ is truly a corpse, sagging under its own weight.
The Descent from the Cross was painted early in Rembrandt's career, at a time when he was still trying to master the compositional complexities of the Baroque. Also from these years date paintings like Belshazzar's Feast and The Blinding of Samson, which impress by their large size, elaborate composition and dramatic subject matter. Although depicting scenes from the Bible, they are not primarily intended to evoke spiritual feeling. Rembrandt's rather theatrical manner may owe something to the religious plays of Vondel, as Gary Schwartz has shown. The religious works for which Rembrandt is best loved are less elaborate in composition, with fewer figures, a quieter subject matter, and a "human" emotional content. Typical subjects are the Presentation in the Temple, the Visitation, the Good Samaritan, and the Return of the Prodigal Son.
Rembrandt's paintings show that he had thought hard about the Bible stories. Even when he takes a well known story, he sometimes chooses a part of the story that had not been depicted before. For example, the etching of The Good Samaritan shows him not in the act of finding the injured traveller but in taking him into the inn. As Jakob Rosenberg noticed (Rosenberg 220), Rembrandt's Descent from the Cross takes place at night, as described in the Gospel account. Unlike other artists of his day, Rembrandt sometimes depicts Christ with Jewish features. One of Rembrandt's contemporaries praised him for accurately describing Biblical events, citing Samson's Wedding Feast as an example: "Behold this fruit of his own natural expression derived from history well read and understood by high and far (reaching) reflection" (White 67). The German historian Ranke said that his aim was "to see the past as it really happened", and it can be said that Rembrandt's aim was to see the Bible as it really happened.
Rembrandt imaginatively recreates the Bible stories, almost as if he had himself experienced them, and consequently emphasises their human content, illustrating the emotions of the figures. For example, other artists of the Baroque period used the stories of Bathsheba and David, and Susanna and the Elders, as excuses for depicting attractive female nudes. But Rembrandt portrays the worry on the face of Bathsheba as she ponders King David's letter, and the distress experienced by Susanna as she is surprised by the two old men. In David Playing the Harp Before Saul, we see Saul wiping his tears with a curtain while he struggles to contain the emotions that are overwhelming him. In his last great religious painting, Rembrandt depicted The Return of the Prodigal Son, the world's greatest story of reconciliation and forgiveness. The father and son are fused together in an embrace. As Kenneth Clark has said, "the gesture with which the father puts his hands on his son's shoulders, while his kneeling son presses his head to his father's heart, has an archetypal grandeur and pathos, like some great religious image of the Early Middle Ages" (Clark 137).
The Return of the Prodigal Son can be compared with The Jewish Bride, painted at around the same date, since both paintings are of two figures holding each other in an emotional embrace, in compositions of great simplicity but extraordinary power. The Jewish Bride is probably a portrait of a couple, not a religious painting, and yet it is thought that the sitters may be cast in the roles of Isaac and Rebecca, or two other characters from the Bible. Rembrandt's art does not display a rigid division between the different genres of painting. It is, for example, often useful to look at his religious paintings alongside his portraits. The use of chiaroscuro in many portraits and the elimination of background details helps to give them a spiritual dimension. This may also be related to the Protestant emphasis on soul searching, and could even be an additional reason for Rembrandt's numerous self-portraits.
Works Cited
Again, it is often said that there was no market for religious art in seventeenth-century Holland because the Calvinists objected to religious imagery. It is certainly true that the Calvinists objected to religious art, which they saw as a profanation. The Calvinists' deliberate destruction of works of art in churches had been one of the factors that had caused Philip of Spain to come down so hard on the Netherlands in the late sixteenth century. But we must remember that the Calvinists were a minority, never comprising more than a third of the population, and were ultimately unable to impose their dogmas on the rest of the Dutch people. Besides Calvinists, there were other Protestant groups - such as Remonstrants, Anabaptists, Lutherans, Mennonites - a sizeable number of Catholics, and some communities of Jews. Some of these groups made use of religious art, and it is likely that most of Rembrandt's Bible scenes were painted for members of Protestant sects, especially the Mennonites.
Rembrandt's Bible scenes were probably intended for the walls of private houses, not as devotional images for churches. His pictures must have provided material for discussions on the meanings of the Bible stories, and his etchings allowed his work to be purchased by greater numbers of people. Jakob Rosenberg has shown that many of the stories depicted by Rembrandt were favourites with the Mennonites (Rosenberg 182), and this raises the question of whether it was Rembrandt or his patrons who chose the subjects of his paintings, subjects which were sometimes unusual. For example, Rembrandt painted some scenes from The Book of Tobit, a work which was important to the Mennonites but not to the Calvinists. But as Julius Held has shown, The Book of Tobit may also have had a personal meaning for Rembrandt, because it describes a close relationship between a father and son, perhaps reminding Rembrandt of his relationships with his own father and his own son, Titus (Held 121-122, 127-128). Tobit was blind, which was probably true of Rembrandt's own father in his last years, increasing Rembrandt's interest in the story. It may well be that Rembrandt was attracted to the Mennonites because he shared their belief in the importance of Bible reading and adherence to the literal words of Christ. Rembrandt's paintings seem to indicate that he had studied the Bible and given thought to ways in which the stories could be presented on canvas. In The Book of Tobit, the Angel accompanies and guides Tobias, but does not reveal himself to be a supernatural being until the very end of the story. This theme may have had some personal significance for Rembrandt, who also painted The Supper at Emmaus and The Risen Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen, in both of which Christ - like the Angel - finally reveals himself.
Rembrandt was in contact not only with the Mennonites but also with Amsterdam's Jews, some of whom were his neighbours in the St. Anthoniesbreestraat. Rich Jews from Spain and Portugal - the Sephardim - were friends and patrons of Rembrandt (Menasseh ben Israel, Ephraim Bonus), and poor Jews from Eastern Europe - the Ashkenazim - were sometimes used as models by Rembrandt. Remnrandt's use of Jewish sources is an important topic in Rembrandt studies, but one area which seems to have been overlooked is the architectural backgrounds to his paintings. For example, the depiction of the Temple at Jerusalem in the National Gallery's Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery may be
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| Rembrandt, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, National Gallery, London |
based upon the interior of a synagogue. In this painting we see a group of men with beards - the rabbis. The light source is not obvious, but appears to be coming from above, and in many synagogues the windows are set high up the wall, near the ceiling. There seem to be people sitting in a gallery, another feature of a synagogue, in which men are separated from women. There appear to be two tall cylinders standing in front of the altar, which may be containers for the sacred scrolls. Thus it seems very possible that Rembrandt had some knowledge of synagogue architecture, although we can only speculate as to how he gained this information. The main synagogue in Amsterdam - painted by Emmanuel de Witte - seems to have had big windows and columns, not at all like the cavernous building depicted in Rembrandt's painting.
A further source of patronage for Rembrandt was the Stadtholder, Frederik Hendrik, who commissioned a cycle of paintings on the Passion of Christ for his private chapel at the Hague. Frederik Hendrik and his wife, Amalia van Solms, usually patronised artists from Antwerp, who had mastered the florid, grandiose style of the Baroque. It is an interesting paradox that the Stadtholder, who drew much of his support from militant Calvinists, thought that he could advance the princely pretentions of the House of Orange by copying the artistic trappings of a Catholic Baroque monarchy. Rembrandt must have been trying to adapt his style to meet the taste of the Stadtholder. This would help to account for the very un-Rembrandtian cherubs which appear in The Ascension of Christ. It would also account for the borrowings from Rubens in The Descent from the Cross, although Rembrandt's painting was much smaller than the one by Rubens, which Rembrandt only knew through a print by Lucas Vorsterman. Even here, however, Rembrandt shows how much he differs from Rubens. Rubens' Christ is beautiful and idealised, even in death, whereas Rembrandt's Christ is truly a corpse, sagging under its own weight.
The Descent from the Cross was painted early in Rembrandt's career, at a time when he was still trying to master the compositional complexities of the Baroque. Also from these years date paintings like Belshazzar's Feast and The Blinding of Samson, which impress by their large size, elaborate composition and dramatic subject matter. Although depicting scenes from the Bible, they are not primarily intended to evoke spiritual feeling. Rembrandt's rather theatrical manner may owe something to the religious plays of Vondel, as Gary Schwartz has shown. The religious works for which Rembrandt is best loved are less elaborate in composition, with fewer figures, a quieter subject matter, and a "human" emotional content. Typical subjects are the Presentation in the Temple, the Visitation, the Good Samaritan, and the Return of the Prodigal Son.
Rembrandt's paintings show that he had thought hard about the Bible stories. Even when he takes a well known story, he sometimes chooses a part of the story that had not been depicted before. For example, the etching of The Good Samaritan shows him not in the act of finding the injured traveller but in taking him into the inn. As Jakob Rosenberg noticed (Rosenberg 220), Rembrandt's Descent from the Cross takes place at night, as described in the Gospel account. Unlike other artists of his day, Rembrandt sometimes depicts Christ with Jewish features. One of Rembrandt's contemporaries praised him for accurately describing Biblical events, citing Samson's Wedding Feast as an example: "Behold this fruit of his own natural expression derived from history well read and understood by high and far (reaching) reflection" (White 67). The German historian Ranke said that his aim was "to see the past as it really happened", and it can be said that Rembrandt's aim was to see the Bible as it really happened.
Rembrandt imaginatively recreates the Bible stories, almost as if he had himself experienced them, and consequently emphasises their human content, illustrating the emotions of the figures. For example, other artists of the Baroque period used the stories of Bathsheba and David, and Susanna and the Elders, as excuses for depicting attractive female nudes. But Rembrandt portrays the worry on the face of Bathsheba as she ponders King David's letter, and the distress experienced by Susanna as she is surprised by the two old men. In David Playing the Harp Before Saul, we see Saul wiping his tears with a curtain while he struggles to contain the emotions that are overwhelming him. In his last great religious painting, Rembrandt depicted The Return of the Prodigal Son, the world's greatest story of reconciliation and forgiveness. The father and son are fused together in an embrace. As Kenneth Clark has said, "the gesture with which the father puts his hands on his son's shoulders, while his kneeling son presses his head to his father's heart, has an archetypal grandeur and pathos, like some great religious image of the Early Middle Ages" (Clark 137).
The Return of the Prodigal Son can be compared with The Jewish Bride, painted at around the same date, since both paintings are of two figures holding each other in an emotional embrace, in compositions of great simplicity but extraordinary power. The Jewish Bride is probably a portrait of a couple, not a religious painting, and yet it is thought that the sitters may be cast in the roles of Isaac and Rebecca, or two other characters from the Bible. Rembrandt's art does not display a rigid division between the different genres of painting. It is, for example, often useful to look at his religious paintings alongside his portraits. The use of chiaroscuro in many portraits and the elimination of background details helps to give them a spiritual dimension. This may also be related to the Protestant emphasis on soul searching, and could even be an additional reason for Rembrandt's numerous self-portraits.
Works Cited
Clark, Kenneth, An Introduction to Rembrandt, London: Murray, 1978
Held, Julius, "Rembrandt and the Book of Tobit" in Rembrandt's Aristotle and Other Rembrandt Studies, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969
Rosenberg, Jakob, Rembrandt: Life and Work, Oxford: Phaidon, 4th ed. 1980
Schwartz, Gary, Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings, London: Penguin, 1980
White, Christopher, Rembrandt, London: Thames & Hudson, 1984
The information on synagogues is taken from Encyclopaedia Judaica (16 volumes), Jerusalem: Keter Publications, 1971
The information on synagogues is taken from Encyclopaedia Judaica (16 volumes), Jerusalem: Keter Publications, 1971
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