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A Problem of Rembrandt Rembrandt’s Later Religious
Portraits |
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The 16 paintings are
assigned dates from 1657 to 1661, and come from across the United States,
Europe and Scandinavia. The earliest, Bearded Man with a Cap, studies light striking the right eye while the left is in shadow.
The first of three Apostles Paul exhibits the propoundment
of a problem, which is clarified immediately in the first of
two Apostles Bartholomew. The Washington, D.C. Paul is
exhaustingly wearied by his travails, the light strikes his head and the hand
holding the quill, lesser light hits the page before him. This is Paul the
Explainer. The San Diego Bartholomew receives the light on his face
and also on the right hand holding the knife, he was
flayed alive for his faith. The knitted brow is incorrect close up, but
acquiesces from a distance.
The London Paul
(An Elderly Man as the Apostle Paul) gives the light full face and
half-light on the clasped hands, an expression of patience. The Rijksmuseum Paul
(a self-portrait) solves the problem definitively. The blinding light
hits the top of the head in a banded headdress, and goes on to strike the
book he’s holding more dimly, while he looks askance. The Getty Bartholomew
is, I would advance, a self-portrait in another
skin.
Christ in the Hyde Collection wears red under his cloak,
robin-breasted in a single image. The Man in a Red Cap (Rotterdam) is
broken up for distance viewing in a Geer van Velde geometricization.
Hendrickje Stoffels at the
Metropolitan is the Beloved seen most fully, not “Possibly as the
Sorrowing Virgin”. The Alte Pinakothek Resurrected Christ (possibly a
fragment) is a great but arcane study, the white robe or cerecloth on the
right shoulder is raised on the left. The Helsinki Monk Reading, Possibly
Saint Francis is absorbed in his cowl, light
strikes the text he is reading. The Zurich Apostle Simon has a halo of
nebulous light, the Metropolitan Christ with a Pilgrim’s Staff
(possibly James the Minor, first bishop of Jerusalem) has some light behind
him on the column he’s standing next to, the white undergarment at his
breast conveys the tone. The privately-owned Apostle James the Major
catches the light on his thin ruff and blue-veined hands. The Épinal Virgin of Sorrows is abstracted by the
white light streaming down her bosom. Saint Bavo (known in Göteborg as Riddaren
med Falken) has the consciousness of light on
his face, with dimly around him a horse, a groom, and a falcon. |
