April 1 - Christian Artist

April 1 – Christian Artist

In a time when religious art was growing, a young man from Holland began to look at it quite differently. Catholic artists generally painted the saints. Artists tended to paint scenes from the Bible with the people viewed as nearly god-like, much like the Greek and Roman art that depicted the various pantheons of deities. Protestants believed that the Bible alone should be used for religion and avoided artistic depictions.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, a Protestant, discovered his passion in art and after training with many famous artists, began to develop his own style which blended very earthy images with scriptural references. He painted portraits of street people, his family, even inserting himself into his paintings. A beggar in a turban became a king of Israel, an old Jewish man became Paul the Apostle. In one of his paintings, he put himself as one of those who crucified Christ.

Rembrandt did not paint to teach people about Jesus Christ, he painted because it was his passion. He painted secular and sacred themes, but there was always a sense of God in his art.

He saw humanity in a very realistic sense and when he painted Biblical stories, the sense of emotion and human sin is portrayed. When he painted landscapes, he showed the ugliness and the beauty of nature.

Rembrandt met with great success as a youth, he taught most of the great artists of the period in Holland. He married well and had extensive art collections. But, he was unable to manage all of this and after having outlived his wife, son and two mistresses, he ended up dying alone and being buried in an unmarked grave.

He has been called a ‘great prophet of civilization’ due to his love for and understanding of humanity. His art gave us a very Protestant view of Scripture and a gorgeous look at how this man saw the way mankind interacted with Scripture.