A Second Chance

While in Leeds a couple of weeks ago a colleague came up to me and said “I’m so jealous – I hear you are going to the Hermitage and will get to see Rembrandt’s ‘Prodigal Son’”.  To be honest I’m not a great fan of Rembrandt.  His ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’ in the National Gallery is about as good as it gets for me (or was that one of his pupils?).  I suspect many Christians’ love of Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son is actually love of Henry Nouwen’s book meditating on it (which is his masterpiece).

Still, the art historian Kenneth Clark described it as "a picture which those who have seen the original in Leningrad may be forgiven for claiming as the greatest picture ever painted".  So being in Leningrad (or St Petersburg) it only seemed right to pay it a visit.

My first impression was that it is impressive.  The canvas towers over the viewer with its larger than life portraits.  While I am still not won over as a Rembrandt fan, I was surprised how meditative the painting is.  Prayer comes easily and I sat next to it while tourists came and went – guides sharing their knowledge or ignorance in a variety of languages.  I opened Morning Prayer on my phone and prayed for family, friends and all sorts of situations that came to mind.

Regarding the painting itself I have two observations.  Firstly many people (including Nouwen) make much of the fact that one of the father’s hands is bigger than the other.  This represents the masculine and feminine sides of God they say – I suspect Rembrandt just couldn’t paint very well (Hockney has similar problems with feet – which is why they tend to be hidden from view).

Secondly I am left wondering who is the elder brother?  Most people assume that it is the man on the right.  But he doesn’t look very upset to me.  And if you read Luke 15 the brother doesn’t appear back from working in the field until after the prodigal is changed and the party has started.  The bloke in the red coat looks as old as the father and doesn’t look like he’s been in the fields.

But if the elder son is the man in shadow, in the middle and towards the top then the painting starts to make more sense.  He is still ‘in the dark’  He is standing in the doorway, undecided whether to come in (the door arch is very dark but clearly an entrance). 

Two compositional issues make my case.  Firstly the man in red on the left is in exactly the same position as a chief steward in a painting of the same subject by the Spanish artist Murillo (in that painting he is holding out the new robes requested by the father – in Rembrandt’s he is wearing them – perhaps alluding to the Prodigal’s thought that his father’s servants are better off than he is?). 

 

But the second point is more satisfying to me.  On a conventional reading of the painting Rembrandt’s composition (usually very good) is rubbish.  All the action is squeezed in on the left.  The ‘son in the shadows’ however is in a perfect compositional position.  So the son who believes that he deserves to be the centre of attention is where he belongs – in the middle.  Yet the ‘action’ has moved off to the left where the father reaches out to the lost.  The older son, on this reading, looks straight out at the viewer as if to ask “what’s going on here?”  Which is of course the question of the painting.  So perhaps Rembrandt knew what he was doing?  And perhaps it’s much better than I first thought.