A radically different image for today’s fight:
Rembrandt’s The Blinding of Samson, painted in 1636. Click the image to see the whole composition.
And Delilah said to Samson, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your great strength lies.” And when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. And he told her all his heart, and said to her, “A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.” When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines . . .
Ugh.
Wouldn’t you love to have that hanging over the dinner table?
Uff da. Perhaps you can find pictures of Judith and Holofernes, or Jael and Sisera.
So do you disapprove or are you just commenting? I found those paintings, btw. One of Judith and H. is chilling.
Fully as inspirational as the fight clips. But you’ve got to admit this one’s pretty gruesome.
Good. I should have kept the hard subject in mind. I guess I’m detached sometimes. Or thoughtless. Messed up, maybe.
I approve of biblical realism in art, though certain paintings wouldn’t be the best for the dinner table.
Where was this painting meant to be hung? I don’t know all that much about Rembrandt, and I know zero about the history and provenance of this particular painting. In light of the discussion about dinner tables, I’m curious to know what its intended context was.
Sally, I believe paintings like this are either commissioned or purchased by lords and kings. They could be displayed anywhere in their massive homes, sometimes on walls with many other paintings. This one was painted in 1636, and I’ve read that Rembrandt wanted to make a strong statement about his abilities with it. If he sold it or gave it to someone, I don’t know. It’s in a museum now, of course.
Yeah, I guess what I’m interested in is the shift of art out of churches in the 16th and 17th centuries. I know that it would doubtless have been commissioned by some wealthy patron, though in earlier centuries it would have been commissioned for an ecclesial context, to serve a catechetical purpose, but in this era it’s more or less . . . well, decorative, though for the artist as much a technical challenge as anything else?
I do know that in this era secular and also classical subject matter became much more common in art — earlier, the Cranachs had gone from painting the Virgin to painting Venus, and then you have all those Dutch and Flemish painters doing still-lifes and interiors. Somehow the choice of religious subject matter (and what subject matter gets chosen), regardless of whether the painter or the patron chose it, seems potentially really interesting because it was more an option than a given . . . if that makes any sense. And because someone wanted it as home decor, even if on that grand Baroque scale.
I’m not actually sure why I’m suddenly so interested in that, but the conversation about the context this painting was intended for, since it wouldn’t have been a church . . . uh, makes me interested, I guess. Don’t have a clue where I’m going with it. I know a bit about Northern painting in the 14th, 15th and early-16th centuries, when it was all altarpieces, but not so much about this later period.
Well, like I was saying above, I think this painting little more intended context for display than a large manor or government building. There’s a note written by Rembrandt which describes the artist’s hope that an unnamed painting will be well received. The painting is described only by its dimensions and those dimensions fit The Blinding of Samson, even though Rembrandt’s most violent work seems an odd choice for a gift to that particular art patron. Still, it’s possible Rembrandt gave this paint to that nobleman, hoping to impress him on the one hand and hoping to make a bold statement about his abilities as a serious artist on the other. What I read argued that he wanted to tell the world that he was a good as Rubens, so he painted this dramatic, sensational scene from Samson’s life, one that would cause a stir.
Ah, well, that’s all really interesting. Thanks, Phil!