Six Subjects of Reformation Art: A Preface to Rembrandt

Virgil Hammock is head of the Canadian section of the International
Association of Art Critics and chair of the Department of Fine Arts at
Mount Allison University.

This book deals with Rembrandt’s use of the Protestant idea of divine grace as an important element in the artist’s iconography. It is difficult to equate anti-humanism with one of the most human artists of all time, Rembrandt, but that is exactly what Professor Halewood sets out to do. Much of this has to do with one’s interpretation of the term humanism. I, for one, have always found Netherlandish painting to be more human than the heroics of their Italian counterparts, but that interpretation is not the author’s point. He is dealing with the austere nature of the Reformation and its relationship to the images in Netherlandish art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Reformation was in many ways anti-humanist when compared with the more worldly ideas of the High Renaissance, and this proved to be a difficulty to the more advanced Protestant artists of the time. Indeed, there were Protestant reformers, like Calvin, who were out and out iconoclasts. Consequently, the themes that Protestant artists could safely use (ideologically speaking) were limited and, in fact, many Dutch seventeenth century artists avoided religious pictures altogether and stuck to safer, and more profitable, subject matter such as still-life, portraiture, and genre painting. Rembrandt was, of course, the consummate religious artist. However, he repeated some themes over and over again throughout his career with the images becoming stronger as he matured as an artist. It is some of these repeated themes — those relating to the Protestant idea of grace such as the Prodigal Son, the Conversion of Paul and the Raising of Lazarus — that Halewood writes about. What is meant by the Protestant idea of grace is that man receives grace, or forgiveness, through divine intervention only and not through any action that man himself invokes — this is an idea that is central to the Reformation.

One has only to compare Rembrandt’s religious imagery with that of his great Catholic contemporary Rubens to understand what Halewood means. There is a subtle majesty in the Dutch artist’s work that is lacking in the histrionics of the Flemish master. Rembrandt was an effective voice for the evangelic teachings of Protestantism. Rembrandt, as did the Reformation, placed man solidly on earth and at the mercy of a forgiving God. The Prodigal Son of Rembrandt’s art was a very ordinary looking person, as was his father, transformed by God’s good graces. This ordinariness was the very thing that made his work so special. It is impossible to look at Rembrandt’s religious art and not be moved by its piety. When I look at one of Rubens’ great religious works, I am moved by the artist’s magnificent virtuosity as a painter, but that is all.

A major factor affecting Netherlandish artists of the seventeenth century was Protestantism. It was the translation of Protestantism, and especially the Reformation, into visual terms that was the difficult task of Northern art. This book has made me look at Rembrandt’s religious art in a new way, and it is a way that, when you think about it, makes sense. Professor Halewood writes about a difficult subject in a clear and easily understood fashion that is unusual for books of this type. This is a very good little book, albeit expensive at fifteen dollars in paperback.