Rembrandt in the Wind

With every brushstroke, Rembrandt brought biblical characters to life through his artwork. Today, Dr. Stephen Nichols gives us a tour of one of his masterpieces, recounting the life of this famous Dutch painter along the way.

In 1990, two men dressed in Boston police uniforms walked into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Art. They walked out with a dozen masterpiece paintings and a few artifacts. It is the largest art heist in history. The paintings by such authors as Manet and Degas and Vermeer, and three by Rembrandt remain missing, and the crime remains unsolved. In the Dutch Room of the Gardener Museum is a large and ornate but empty frame. It is there hanging on the wall with nothing behind it. And what was behind it was one of those Rembrandt paintings, the painting of Christ in the Storm at the Sea of Galilee. The painting depicts Christ and the twelve disciples. As typical of Rembrandt paintings, there is the play of light and darkness. There is just a little bit of light in the top left side trying to push through the clouds, but the rest of the painting is enveloped in darkness.

The mast is torn, waves are battering the sides of the ships, and all hands of the disciples are at work holding onto this lash or this rope. And there, in the middle, Jesus is calm. Two of the disciples are pleading with him to save them. One of the disciples is hunched over the boat, total desperation across his face. And then there is one figure who is looking out at us, the viewers of the painting. He’s got one hand holding onto a rope and the other hand holding his hat. It’s Rembrandt. He painted himself in the picture, and Rembrandt, like his painting, is in the wind. Rembrandt was a golden-age Dutch painter. In fact, he was the Dutch golden age painter. He would return again and again to biblical scenes for his art. He spent most of his life in Amsterdam and he spent considerable time in the Jewish quarter studying faces, which he would then use in his paintings.

He would bring models into his studio, and he would draw upon his memory. Well, he was born back in Leiden. His mother was Catholic, his father was Dutch Reformed. He lived from 1606 through 1669. This is the time of the Synod of Dort. This is the time of the rise of the Dutch Reformed Church. This is the time of the flourishing of Calvinism in the Netherlands. And Rembrandt was in the midst of it all. Along with his brothers and sisters, he was baptized into the Dutch Reformed Church, and he went on to study there in his hometown of Leiden. He studied at the university. He spent the first 25 years of his life at Leiden. And then in 1631, he moved to Amsterdam. He applied himself to his painting, self-portraits, landscapes, probably one of his most famous paintings comes along in 1642, The Night Watch.

It is a massive painting, twelve feet by fourteen and a half feet. It hangs in the Rijksmuseum. And then there are the paintings of that recurring theme, those biblical scenes. Critics of Rembrandt note that he brings a depth to the biblical characters that he depicts. They say that it had to do with mastering light and darkness and how he could show shadows upon a face. He also deeply understood the human condition. He himself was no stranger to suffering and loss. And he combines all of this to depict the biblical scenes masterfully. And so it is with Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee. This dramatic moment is recorded in all four of the gospels.

Luke tells us that this windstorm came down on the lake, that it was filling the boat with water, and the disciples were in danger, and they were saying, "‘Master, master, we are perishing!’ And Jesus awoke and he rebuked the wind and the raging waves and they ceased, and there was a calm.” He then turns to the disciples and he says, “‘Where is your faith?’ And they were afraid and they marveled and saying one to another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?’” All depicted in Rembrandt’s painting. And I’m Steve Nichols, and thanks for joining us for 5 Minutes in Church History.