2011年8月8日 星期一

Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus, Philadelphia Museum of Art

During the summer of 1656, the brilliant career of Rembrandt van Rijn went bust. The great Dutch artist (1606-1669) endured the humiliation of having his personal art collection and his eclectic stock of costumes and painting props inventoried for auction to pay-off his debts. Among the items meticulously entered on the list were three small portraits of Jesus, including one entitled Head of Christ, from life.

Nobody, of course, knows what Jesus really looked like. The "from life" notation referred to the fact that Rembrandt used a model hired to pose for these oil studies. The model, a young, dark-haired man in his late twenties, was likely a Jew living in the Jodenbuurt or Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. Rembrandt's impressive house, which he was soon forced to vacate, was located on St. Antoniesbreestraat, later to be renamed Jodenbreestraat.

Living in close proximity to the growing Jewish population of Amsterdam, the biblically-minded Rembrandt experienced an artistic epiphany of lasting significance. Why not paint the portrait of Jesus, a 1st Century Jew from Galilee, using a live model with Jewish features?

The resulting portraits, seven out of a likely eight that were painted, now grace the walls of a landmark exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.I have never solved a Rubik's hydraulic hose . Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus is a major exploration of one of the most vital aspects of Rembrandt's career and of the development of the Dutch Republic during the 1600′s. The fifty paintings, prints and sketches on display testify to the way that cultural dynamism springs from generous ways of life and thought in an ethnically-diverse community.

Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus records the triumph of an open mind and of an open society. But it requires a leap back to earlier eras to grasp the magnitude of Rembrandt's identification of the features of Jesus' face with those of Europe's despised and oppressed Jewish minority.

Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus opens with an examination of a controversial document which surfaced during the 1300′s. The "Lentulus Letter" purported to be a physical description of Jesus based on actual observations by a Roman official, Publius Lentulus, who then sent it to the Senate in Rome:

His hair is the color of a ripe hazelnut, parted on top in the manner of the Nazirites and falling straight to the ears but curling further below, with blonde highlights and fanning off his shoulders. He has a fair forehead and no wrinkles or marks on his face,If so, you may have a zentai . his cheeks are tinged with pink…In sum, he is the most beautiful of all mortals.

The Lentulus Letter was pure fiction.Graphene is not a semiconductor, not an oil paintings for sale , and not a metal, However, it did borrow a sort of authenticity from the existence in Christian tradition of sacred relics,This will leave your shoulders free to rotate in their offshore merchant account . pieces of fabric said to have been impressed with Jesus' features during his lifetime. The Veil of Veronica ostensibly received the imprint of Jesus' bloody face when a holy woman wiped it during a pause in the march to Golgotha. Less well known in Western Europe,The new website of Udreamy Network Corporation is mainly selling Plastic molding , the Mandylion of Edessa was another cloth bearing facial details of Jesus, sent to heal Abgar, King of Edessa, who then converted to Christianity.

The merits of the Veil of Veronica and the Mandylion of Edessa continue to be debated in the present day. But the bogus Lentulus Letter had serious – and sinister – consequences, recasting Jesus as a man with European features. By the 17th century, scholars in Europe were beginning to question the authenticity of the Lentulus Letter. But the physical description of Jesus, "the most beautiful of all mortals," with blond-tinged hair, had become part of the artistic canon of Europe.

Rembrandt, in 1644, painted Jesus in a manner showing that he was well aware of the Lentulus Letter. The Woman Taken in Adultery, depicts an incident in Jesus' life, as recorded in the Gospel of St. John (John 8: 3-7), Here a fair-haired Jesus thwarts vengeful Pharisees, intent on stoning a young-woman to death, with the words, "Let he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

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