Saints Men

027

Throughout his long and extraordinarily productive career, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) turned repeatedly to the Bible as a source of inspiration for his paintings, drawings and etchings. Although his composition, themes and pictorial style changed dramatically over the course of his career, he always demonstrated a remarkable empathy with the human dimension of these accounts, whatever their theological implication. Whether portraying the Old Testament patriarch Abraham preparing to sacrifice his beloved son or the Holy Family at rest in a simple dwelling, Rembrandt transformed the written word into vividly compelling pictorial language, replete with all the text’s nuances of meaning.

Near the end of his life, especially in the late 1650s and early 1660s, Rembrandt created an extraordinary group of “portraits” of New Testament and later religious figures: Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Paul and several of the apostles who devoted their lives to spreading the gospel, some of the evangelists, and various monks and saints. Seventeen of these oil paintings are now on exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C.; four are featured here.

These religious portraits are among the most fascinating and provocative of Rembrandt’s work, for they fall outside the subject range that concerned the Dutch artist for most of his life. His focus on these subjects late in life seemingly lends credence to the belief that Rembrandt painted out of an inner conviction and without constraints foisted on him by the demands of the art market.

Although scholars have studied the character of Rembrandt’s interpretations of biblical stories and archivists have sought the evidence of contemporary documents, the nature of Rembrandt’s religious beliefs remains largely unknown. The most specific mention of a connection between Rembrandt and a religious sect comes from the 17th-century writer Filippo 028Baldinucci, who reported in 1686 that Rembrandt “professed in those days the religion of the Menists [Mennonites].”

As art historian Jakob Rosenberg has emphasized, it is not necessary to determine whether Rembrandt was actually a member of the Mennonite community in order to recognize his spiritual affinity to this community’s basic beliefs, which centered on man’s spirtual life in response to direct engagement with biblical texts.¹ Not only did Rembrandt depict a number of the biblical stories that Menno Simons had emphasized in his writings, such as those of Susanna, Esther, and Jacob and Esau, but the Christ he portrayed was much the same as the one this founder of the Mennonites had envisioned: a teacher and a healer of human suffering. Rembrandt depicted biblical figures as real people, not as idealized heroes but as men and women who walked the earth with passion and belief, with fear and anxiety. He sought out biblical stories that revealed both man’s fallibility and his humility in seeking God’s mercy.

One senses in these religious portraits internal doubt and the search for spiritual truth, rather than forceful self-reliance. As these brooding figures, so vulnerable in their humanity, try to comprehend the mysteries of life and the Christian message, they also seem to struggle with an awareness of their own impending mortality. In Rembrandt’s hands, their efforts to reconcile these conflicting forces are both heart-wrenching and profoundly human.—A.K.W.

The Apostle Paul

Sitting before a table in the dim recesses of his prison cell, the apostle Paul has brought his hand to his head as he ponders the words he is about to write in the epistle that lies before him.² The weighty expression of his strong features underscores the depth of his faith and his determination to spread the gospel. The sword visible above the book is as much “the sword of the Spirit,” the term Paul used to describe the word of God in his Letter to the Ephesians (6:17), as it is the symbol of his own military might before his conversion or the foreboding of his eventual martyrdom.

Rembrandt’s concern is not the dramatic moment when Paul, or Saul, was converted to Christianity. Rembrandt, unlike so many artists before him, apparently never depicted Saul felled by a blinding light on the road to Damascus. It was Paul the apostle that captivated Rembrandt, perhaps because his writings were the most important source for Reformation theology or perhaps because he personified the Christian belief that grace alone offers salvation.—A.K.W.

The Apostle Bartholomew

The saint leans forward in a low-backed chair, his gaze averted to the left, eyebrow cocked, and mouth slightly open, as if listening intently. Strong light brilliantly illuminates the right side of his face, revealing its hollow cheek and furrowed brow, and highlighting the curling texture of his short hair and beard. He is dressed in a plain brown robe over a white shirt, the cuff of which shows radiantly at the wrist; a heavier, buff-colored cloak covers the chair. He holds the knife of his martyrdom with quiet equanimity, but the glittering blade suggests a bolder gesture.

Rembrandt portrays the apostle as a fierce Christian protagonist. In truth, little is known about Bartholomew, who is mentioned only briefly in the New Testament as one of the Twelve Apostles (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13). The name Bartholomaios is Aramaic, meaning “son of Talmai.” According to the fourth-century church historian Eusebius, a traveler in India discovered a Hebrew manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew left by “Bartholomew, one of the apostles.” Later medieval accounts have the apostle traveling extensively through Asia, preaching the gospel in India and Armenia, where he is said to have been flayed alive and then beheaded.—A.T.W.

Christ

Jesus’ gaze seems unfocused, but directed obliquely and meditatively into the distance; his expression is earnest and solemn, with a hint of sadness.

All the images of Jesus by Rembrandt adhere fairly closely to a description from an apocryphal letter first known in the 15th century but attributed to a fictional first-century governor of Judea, Publius Lentulus: “His 031hair is the color of a ripe hazelnut, parted on top in the manner of the Nazirites, and falling straight to the ears but curling below, with blonde highlights and fanning off his shoulders. He has a fair forehead and no wrinkles or marks on his face, his cheeks are tinged with pink … his beard is large and full but not long, and parted in the middle. His glance shows simplicity adorned with maturity, his eyes are clear and commanding, never apt to laugh but sooner inclined to cry.”³

It is assumed that Rembrandt, who had close contact with Amsterdam Jews for much of his life, used Jews for models not only for secular images but also for his religious subjects, including this portrait of Jesus.—P.C.S.

Self-portrait as the Apostle Paul

In this self-portrait, the artist explicitly acknowledges his personal identification with Paul, who is for him the most important of the apostles. As in the painting of Paul on page 26, Rembrandt here defines the historical figure by his attributes—a manuscript, indicative of Paul’s role as a preacher of the gospel, and a sword (just visible at his chest), symbol of his martyrdom. This painting, however, is fundamentally different from Rembrandt’s other images of the apostle. Far from being a quiet and contemplative individual, peering out but looking inward, Rembrandt as St. Paul stares directly at the viewer, engaging us with his open and somewhat quizzical expression. The apostle’s text is no longer considered only by him but is turned toward the viewer, as though being offered for our personal review. Finally, the sword of Paul’s martyrdom rests not against the wall but protrudes from his doublet, or tight-fitting jacket, a boldly assertive statement about the dire consequences of his apostolic teachings.

The saint-artist of this painting seems quite unheroic, even though light shines brilliantly on his face and his white headpiece. His features are swollen and misshapen, his nose is too large, his chin too weak. The hair that protrudes over his ears from his white turban-shaped hat is scraggly, as are his soft beard and mustache. Adding to the quizzical character of his expression is the broad manner in which Rembrandt executed the face, where rough brushstrokes filled with a variety of flesh tones suggest, but do not precisely define, the features. Yet we are drawn to this head, not only by the engagement of Rembrandt’s gaze, but also by the impasto (thick application) of the paint and the focus of the light. In contrast, the pages of the manuscript that Rembrandt-Paul reveals to us are dimly lit, with a text too undefined to read.

How is one to explain the wide-open eyes and raised eyebrows of Rembrandt-Paul’s expression, and the artist’s unusual placement of the saint’s attributes? The Paul represented here does not give the impression of a formidable thinker, one capable, even when confined to the four walls of a prison cell, of articulating the powerful words that formulated essential Christian tenets following the death of Jesus. It is equally difficult to imagine him as a leader of men, one whose commanding presence helped spread the gospel in his missions to Asia Minor, Cyprus, Macedonia, Greece and Rome. Rather, the apostle Paul with whom Rembrandt identified was that flawed human, the man who once was Saul, who somehow, on the way to Damascus, had found favor in God’s eye. He had received the gift of grace that he did not deserve, and the realization of that gift continued to bewilder and amaze him until his dying day.—A.K.W.

This article is based on Rembrandt’s Late Religious Portraits, by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., with Peter C. Sutton, and contributions by Volker Manuth and Anne T. Woollett (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004).

Throughout his long and extraordinarily productive career, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) turned repeatedly to the Bible as a source of inspiration for his paintings, drawings and etchings. Although his composition, themes and pictorial style changed dramatically over the course of his career, he always demonstrated a remarkable empathy with the human dimension of these accounts, whatever their theological implication. Whether portraying the Old Testament patriarch Abraham preparing to sacrifice his beloved son or the Holy Family at rest in a simple dwelling, Rembrandt transformed the written word into vividly compelling pictorial language, replete with all the text’s nuances of […]