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Adar - Rembrandt and the story of Purim
From the time his mother read
aloud to him from the big volume that contained both the Old and the New Testaments,
Rembrandt looked often at the book, gathering ever new inspiration from its
pages. Both the Old and the New Testament provided subjects for his artistic
output, and if one should, pedantically, make an inventory of his paintings,
etchings and drawings, one may find a balance favoring New Testament themes.
And yet, while the
latter may have exercised a more intense religious fanaticism upon him (the
figure of Jesus undoubtedly touched his heart as an ideal, especially the Jesus
who loved little children, the poor and the suffering), the impression prevails
that the Old Testament held a greater attraction for him than the New.
It
was the Old Testament that especially spurred his imagination. It contained
not one outstanding figure, but many who were revealed in human activities and
suffering, not as gods, but as mortals endowed with tremendous potentialities....
The affection which the Bible was held by Rembrandt was not peculiar to him
in the Holland of the 17th century, but was shared by the entire population.
The people of Holland, comparatively small in number, had thrown off the yoke
of the powerful Spanish oppressor, and they identified with the children of
Israel, also an oppressed group, that had freed themselves from Egyptian bondage.
During the seventeenth century, the Dutch theater presented several dramas based
on Old Testament themes.*
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[Editor's note: The rise of Protestantism with Luther
and more so
Calvin came with a desire to get back to the roots (i.e., the Tanakh or "Old
Testament") and away from Catholic "idolatry." The Tanakh and
some of the more austere prophets were used as sources to provide the legitimisation
for this move. There was another factor too in the closer affinity with Hebraic
religious roots; both Protestants and Jews had suffered at the hands of agents
of the Roman Catholic Church (of which Spain was a faithful servant).
The rise of Protestantism saw a favourable turn for Jews, at least in Protestant
Europe. [See JHOM article on Menasseh
Ben Israel and the readmittance of Jews to England by Cromwell —
possibly influenced by Ben Israel's letter — as
a good example of this.]
Rembrandt produced many paintings of biblical characters, among them Cain and
Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samson, Saul and David.
In addition, he painted several scenes from the Book of Esther. In The Triumph
of Mordecai we view Mordecai arrayed in royal robes and escorted through the
streets of the city mounted on a magnificently apparelled horse —
all this in reward for having uncovered the plot against the life
of the king. Haman, his adversary, is compelled to proclaim before him: "Thus
shall be done unto the man whom the king wishes to honor."
Rembrandt produced many paintings of biblical characters, among
them Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samson, Saul
and David. In addition, he painted several scenes from the Book of Esther. In
The Triumph of Mordecai we view Mordecai arrayed in royal robes and escorted
through the streets of the city mounted on a magnificently apparelled horse
-- all this in reward for having uncovered the plot against the life of the
king. Haman, his adversary, is compelled to proclaim before him: "Thus
shall be done unto the man whom the king wishes to honor."
In this etching King Ahasuerus and Esther are shown sitting in
a loge; the populace grouped about the beautiful caparisoned horse; but mounted
upon this steed we see none other than the same aged Jews who appears in Rembrandt's
etching of Jacob and Benjamin. Upright he sits upon the hose, facing the beholder,
but on his face there is a somewhat skeptical express; for a Jew would have
a realization of the rapidity with which the royal favor of today might be changed
into hatred and persecution on the morrow or the day following.
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[*]
In 1618 Abraham de Kong's The Tragedy of Samson was published.
Nicolaes Vonteyn's play, Esther, or The Picture of Obedience,
appeared in the same year. Holland's foremost poet, Joost van den Vondel,
wrote two dramas based upon incidents from the story of Joseph, and translated
a third from the Latin of Hugo Grotius, the celebrated Dutch jurist. [back] |
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 From:
Rembrandt: The Jews and the Bible, by Franz Landsberger, trans. from
the German by Felix N. Geson. Jewish Publication Society, 1946. |
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The
Jewish Bride: A painting by Rembrandt
Bitter biblical moments captured on canvas
The reconciliation of David and Absalom:
Paintings by two 17th-cent. Dutch painters
Judaica Art Gallery: Celebrating Purim,
17th-20th centuries |
 ADAR
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