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1
Rembrandt’s Religious Paintings as Spiritual Autobiography
The Leiden Years
If the paintings done by Rembrandt in the first eight years of his career—the
years between 1624 when he turned 18, and 1631 when he came of age at 25
and moved to Amsterdam—are viewed as autobiographical they coincide
rather strongly with the hypothesis that at some point early in those years he
affiliated with the Leiden Mennonite community.
It is clear that Rembrandt’s art took a major step upward on the technical
level after his time of study with Lastman in 1625. The differences between the
1624 paintings and the 1625 Stoning of St. Stephen (Lyon) are dramatic. He not
only had almost immediately equaled his teacher, he had surpassed him.
2
Lastman had remained a Catholic, but he painted biblical events in a way
that was quite different from the previous Catholic tradition. His young pupil
emulated him in this respect, but not slavishly. Already as a teenager
Rembrandt began to depict biblical scenes in a unique way.
What is significant about the 1625 painting as a part of Rembrandt’s
biography is that St. Stephen is depicted in the robes of a Catholic deacon, and
that Rembrandt has given the saint his own face.
It may be significant that Lastman was a Catholic. There is rather strong
evidence that Rembrandt’s mother and her extended family remained
Catholic. In any case this painting surely reflects the severe religious conflicts
taking place in Leiden during Rembrandt’s early years.
A second painting, dated 1626 (Leiden), done in the same style and on a
similarly sized panel, addresses the Leiden religious conflicts directly, by
intimating that the strict Calvinists who had temporarily taken power in
Leiden should follow the example of Charles V in granting toleration to an
opposition religious community. The two groups in Leiden who were seeking
religious toleration were the Remonstrants and the Mennonites.
3
There is evidence that the owner of both paintings was Petrus Scriverius, a
leader of the Remonstrant community in Leiden. There is also evidence that
two of Rembrandt’s earliest portraits are of Scriverius and his wife.
But in 1626 three signed and dated paintings can be read as an indication
that Rembrandt had affiliated with the Mennonite community at that point in
his life.
The first is Balaam Defying the Angel (Paris, Musée Cognacq-Jay), which
depicts an obscure event in the Hebrew Scriptures, one which Lastman had
previously painted. The message of the Balaam story is that God can speak
directly to persons with prophetic gifts, requiring them to make major changes
in their plans—changes which can be and often are quite costly. The
emotional force in
this painting is
extraordinary, and
especially so for a
young artist just
turning 20. The
most obvious
explanation for this
is to assume that it is
based on a similar
event that the artist
had experienced
personally.
4
That this event was an evangelical conversion—of the kind that was
considered not only normative but also necessary for membership in the
Mennonite community—is provided by a second 1626 painting, St. Philip
Baptizing the Ethiopian (Utrecht). There is no event in all Scripture that more
clearly corresponds to the Anabaptist and Mennonite conception of salvation.
In this view one becomes a Christian by the first accepting the Scriptures as
authoritative, and then by witnessing to this decision by accepting baptism.
Since this decision can only be made by an adult it is not available to children,
but neither does it require a lengthy period of catechesis or doctrinal
preparation. Thus the story of an individual reading the Scriptures, and then
coming to understand their message from a fellow layman, and then
immediately accepting baptism at his hands, strongly validates the theology
and practice of the
early Anabaptists
and Mennonites.
5
This image was later published as an engraving, which would indicate that it
had a sizable market, and the most likely market for this image would have
been the Mennonite community.
The third 1626 painting that is consistent with the hypothesis that
Rembrandt affiliated with the Mennonite community in Leiden that year is
Jesus Cleansing the Temple (Pushkin). Again the image of Jesus freeing the
temple of his time from the corruption of priestly practices is one that strongly
coincided with Anabaptist-Mennonite beliefs.
These Christians viewed themselves as a courageous and prophetic remnant
who were restoring the Christian church to its original purity, which it
maintained at the time of Christ. They viewed both the older Roman and the
newer Reformation institutions as hopelessly corrupt and incapable of reform.
6
The 1627 painting St. Paul in Prison (Stuttgart) is also consistent with the
Anabaptist Mennonite self-conception.
Seventeenth-century evangelicals identified with St. Paul rather than St.
Peter, as has been the case throughout history, up to the present. Thus for
Rembrandt to depict St. Paul as a prisoner in Rome, with his sword beside
him, deeply immersed in theological contemplation, was consistent with the
historical views of the post-Reformation evangelical community—which at
that time in the Netherlands was almost exclusively Mennonite.
7
That same perspective is clearly apparent in the 1628 painting Peter and
Paul Disputing (Melbourne). Here St. Paul is depicted in the light, and is
instructing the smaller Peter about the meaning of scripture.
In this image the authority of the written word is depicted in multiple ways.
Although it is Peter who holds the written text in his hand, it is Paul who
explains its meaning to him. Nothing could be more central to evangelical and
Mennonite beliefs than the authority of the written word. This view was shared
by other Protestants, but not to the extent held by Mennonites, who prided
themselves in reading the scriptures without compromise or tradition.
8
This Biblical literalism is also apparent in the 1628 painting Peter at the
Soldiers’ Fire (Tokyo). This image emphasizes the fact that Peter betrayed
Christ when Christ was arrested. In the Mennonite view this betrayal has been
maintained in the institutional church’s denial of the several places in the
Gospels where military violence is prohibited to Christians.
There is nothing more distinctive about the Mennonite tradition than its
long-standing confessional requirement that its members refrain from military
service. This combined with a belief that when Jesus modeled non-resistance
to evil at his death he intended for his followers to imitate him, even at the cost
of their own deaths.
9
This theme is also present in an undated painting that appears only in the
Bredius catalog, and appears not to have been published or studied since that
time.
It depicts Jesus awaiting trial while being guarded by a soldier. He has been
stripped of his clothing and stands rather stoically awaiting his fate, which he
realizes is certain death. He is looking down on a pile of armament at his feet
with a rather disdainful expression, producing an image that would have been
consistent with the Mennonite rejection of military service.
It is convenient to dismiss this painting as inauthentic, but the fact that
Bredius found it worthy of inclusion in his catalogue means that it cannot be
dismissed without further study. And the fact that when viewed in the context
of Rembrandt’s other early paintings it produces a coherent reading increases
the likelihood that it was painted by Rembrandt.
10
There is another frequently published painting from the 1620s that supports
the hypothesis that the young Rembrandt experienced a mystical conversion at
some point in his early 20s. It is The Risen Christ at Emmaus (Paris, Musée
Jacquemart-André).
Once again the emotional force of this small image is very surprising for
such a young artist—and for any artist at any age to convey its sense of
participation in the event it depicts is very difficult to explain, unless it is
regarded as depicting a spiritual event the author had himself experienced.
The fact that it was originally painted on paper, and only later glued to a
panel, is further evidence that supports the hypothesis that it was painted
during the artist’s personal contemplation of this story from the Gospel
According to Luke. Such individual contemplation of scripture is a practice
that lies at the center of evangelical piety.
11
In 1629 Rembrandt produced the painting that would take him into the
front ranks of Dutch painters, thanks to Constantin Huygens. This is The
Repentant Judas (Mulgrave Castle, UK).
It is also a painting that takes us into the heart of Rembrandt, who would
struggle throughout his life with competing desires for recognition as an artist,
and the wealth that would bring him, and his commitment to the evangelical
Christianity he had learned in the Mennonite community and which had
taught him that faithfulness to Jesus’ example was a necessity that could never
be compromised, and that would often be costly at the personal level.
The painting itself is a tour de force, the result of several years of intense
self-development in the ability to depict human emotion. Huygens
commented on Rembrandts’s self-discipline, which he regarded as almost
excessive, but it is difficult to imagine Rembrandt’s future career without this
period of learning. And it is possible, if not probable, to account for his ability
to do so by his participation in the Mennonite community, which has always
emphasized personal self-discipline as an essential aspect of Christian faith.
12
The 1629 Judas painting has at its center the connection between money
and religious authority and power. This continues a theme that first appeared
in the 1626 Cleansing of the Temple (and in a less direct way in the 1627 The
Rich Fool).
This theme would be continued in another 1629 painting The Tribute
Money (Ottawa).
Once again this is an area of concern that was the central to the Anabaptist
Mennonite community, which constantly struggled with the problem of living
in a civil society while maintaining a primary allegiance to their own religious
communities, something which often brought them into direct conflict with
civil authorities.
13
In 1630 a new mood appears in Rembrandt’s religious paintings. It is most
obvious in the great 1630 painting Jeremiah Leaving Jerusalem (Rijksmuseum),
which depicts the aged prophet viewing the destruction of the Jerusalem
temple in 586 BC. Jeremiah had long predicted this catastrophe, and had done
everything in his power to prevent it, but he had been ignored, and now was
condemned to observe it taking place.
Once again the emotional force conveyed by this painting can best be
explained by postulating that Rembrandt was using this story from the ancient
past to depict his own emotions in the present. In the late 1620s the city of
Leiden had been taken over by recent immigrants from the Hapsburg
territories to the south who were determined to pursue an anti-Catholic
foreign policy that the Remonstrants and Mennonites could not support.
14
This sense of defeat it is also present in the undated St. Paul in Recollection
(Nuremberg). The sense of defeat in these paintings is consistent with the
failure of the Leiden Anabaptist Mennonite community to achieve a
substantial standing in the religious community of the time.
They believed deeply in a Kingdom of God on this earth, but they had not
been able to achieve it—at least not in the present. The most they had been
able to achieve was a sense that they were following the Scriptures without
compromise—and just as St. Paul’s writing had become recognized centuries
after his death, so would their witness to nonviolence and religious liberty.
It is possible to hypothesize that Rembrandt’s move to Amsterdam was
motivated by the fact that the Mennonite community there had achieved a
more substantial and honored place in society.
15
Leaving Leiden
When Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam in 1631 the contents of his
paintings changed rather radically. No longer do we find the intensely personal
spiritual depictions of biblical events that characterize his Leiden years. Instead
we find a vast outpouring of society portraits. The religious paintings from this
period are rather conventional images that would have had a ready market at
the time. They are not the paintings that have established Rembrandt’s
reputation in the years since.
That Rembrandt not only affiliated himself with a Mennonite art dealer, but
also lived with him, provides substantial evidence that he retained his
affiliation with the Mennonite community when he came to Amsterdam.
But when he met his future wife Saskia, who was not a Mennonite, the
evidence of his Mennonite affiliations disappears. There are some sketches of
scenes that would be consistent with his Mennonite past, but they are
completely overshadowed by portraits of his non-Mennonite clientele, and his
non-Mennonite wife. It is not until John The Baptist Preaching (Berlin), now
estimated to have been painted in the mid to late 1630s, that we once again
have evidence of his Mennonite beliefs.
16
This coincides with the
immense tragedy of his first
three children all dying in
infancy, and it is in that period
that the 1637 Biblical painting
The Archangel Departing Tobit’s
Family (Louvre) was produced.
Another Biblical image
depicting the loss of spiritual
protection, Belshazzar’s Feast
(London, National Gallery), is
estimated to have been
produced at approximately the
same time.
17
In 1636 Rembrandt completely discontinued painting portraits, and would
paint them only occasionally in the remaining years.
But in 1640 Rembrandt painted three portraits, all of them Mennonites.
And in 1641 he painted the widely published double portrait of the
Amsterdam Mennonite preacher, Cornelis Anslo, and his wife.
18
After Saskia
When Rembrandt’s wife Saskia died in 1642, leaving him with an infant
son, his life entered a new era, and with it his art.
He had just painted what is arguably his greatest masterwork, The Night
Watch, but now his personal life descended into what can only be described as
a living hell. He turned increasingly to his Jewish neighbors, and painted the
carcass of a slaughtered ox.
In 1646 his spirit was renewed by a spiritual event, which he depicted in a
marvelous but largely ignored painting, Abraham Entertaining the Angels, now
in the Hermitage, but only infrequently published.
19
The years between 1642 and 1649 were years of barrenness, both personally
and artistically. But in the end they produced one of Rembrandt’s greatest
works, the Hundred Guilder Print.
It may have been the only work he produced that year.
When read autobiographically against the background of the chapter from
the Gospels which it exegetes (Matthew 19) it reveals a richness that is virtually
unique in art history. Aside from its power as a work of art it is an equally
powerful work of Biblical interpretation, worthy of the greatest of the Biblical
scholars, and far ahead of the Biblical scholarship of his time.
Once again we find an emotional intensity that is unique, and which is very
difficult to explain if it was not the product of personal experience.
20
In 1652 there is an etching
that clearly depicts a
mystical experience.
That same year
Rembrandt may have
produced the undated
Mary at The Annunciation
(Prague), which also
depicts an intense mystical
event.
21
In 1656, as he was facing a financial disaster that would result in his losing
his home and most of his possessions, Rembrandt began a series of paintings
which depict the head of Christ. In the end he would not succeed—as no other
artist ever has—but he did produce the beautiful but seldom published 1661
Head of Christ (Glen Falls).
There is an intensity of love in this face that could only have been painted by
an artist who had experienced that love.
22
The Final Years
In 1659, or thereabouts—the year when Rembrandt was forced to leave his
mansion on Breestrat and move to a rented house in the working-class section
of Amsterdam—he painted yet another image which depicts an intense
mystical experience.
It is Jacob Wrestling the Angel (Berlin), an image which combines the erotic
and the spiritual in a way that is utterly unique in post-Reformation
Christianity.
23
That same year he painted his contemporary, the poet and playwright Joost
van den Vondel, who had collaborated with him in producing the portrait of
Anslo. Vondel had begun his life as a Mennonite, but converted to
Catholicism in midlife. Rembrandt also that year painted the portrait of a
Capuchin friar.
In 1661 Rembrandt painted a series of portraits of the Twelve Apostles.
Arthur Wheelock assembled this series for an exhibition at the National
Gallery in Washington in 200?. What is significant about this series of portraits
is that they depict the apostles as ordinary laymen who have been called to an
extraordinary responsibility. In 1661 Rembrandt painted his self-portrait as St.
Paul.
24
When his common-law wife Hendrickje died in 1664, leaving behind their
young daughter, Rembrandt appears to have lost the will to go on. He painted
nothing that year except a portrait of Hendrickje as Lucretia, an image of great
emotional intensity.
It was probably the next year that he painted Haman Accepts His Fate
(Hermitage).
The palpable sense of regret in this image could only have come from
someone who was experiencing it.
25
And when his beloved son Titus also died shortly after his marriage, leaving
behind a pregnant wife, Rembrandt could not go on.
His final gift to us is the towering masterpiece, now in the Hermitage, The
Return of the Prodigal Son. This is the work of such great spiritual depth that
one of the 20th century’s leading spiritual writers, Henri Nouwen, made it the
subject of an entire book.
26
To view Rembrandt as though he were merely a painter leaves a great many
questions unanswered.
There were many great painters in the 17th century, and there have been
many since. But none has had the impact or the following that Rembrandt has
had in the 20th century.
How is this to be explained, if not by his own struggles with the same great
issues of the spirit that have confronted us in our time?
11.18.13