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Philosopher in Meditation. This article is about a painting in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, by the 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt.

Philosopher in Meditation (Bredius 431) [1] is the traditional title of an oil painting in the Louvre that has long been attributed to Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (Leiden 1606-Amsterdam 1669). It is signed "RHL-van Rijn" and dated 1632, at the time of Rembrandt's move from Leiden to Amsterdam.[2] The painting appeared in Paris around the middle of the 18th century and made the rounds of aristocratic collections before being acquired for the Royal collections housed in the Musée du Louvre Palace.[3] The presumed subject matter, handling and esthetic qualities of the composition were very appreciated in France and the painting is mentioned in the writings of many 19th- and 20th-century literary figures, including George Sand, Théophile Gautier, Jules Michelet, Marcel Proust, Paul Valéry, Gaston Bachelard, Paul Claudel, and Aldous Huxley. The popularity of this painting can be measured by its presence on the Web, where it is often used as an emblem of Philosophy or interpreted in esoteric or occult terms.

Old man and woman with a spiral staircase
Interior with Tobit and Anna by Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn.

Description

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Painted on an oak panel measuring about 11 x 13 in. (28 x 34 cm), this painting depicts in slightly accelerated perspective two figures in a partially vaulted interior that is dominated by a wooden spiral staircase. The architecture includes stone, brick and wood, with arched elements (window, vault, doors) that create an impression of monumentality. The first figure is that of an old man seated at a table in front of a window, his head bowed and his hands folded in his lap. The second figure is that of an old woman tending a fire in an open hearth. A third figure—a woman standing in the stairs carrying a basket and turned to the spectator—is visible in 18th- and 19th-century engraved reproductions of the painting, but virtually invisible in the painting's present state.[4]

The subject matter

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While the traditional title Philosopher in Meditation has to a large extent been responsible for the painting's popularity, it is iconographically untenable. The painting shows none of the conspicuous attributes of scholarship or philosophy—books, globe, scientific instruments, etc.—and the presence of at least one other figure involved in domestic tasks does not fit in with the solitude associated with study and meditation[5]. Though a large book and a quill seem to be among the few objects on the table in front of the main figure, they are summarily depicted and impossible to identify more precisely: a Bible alone would not suffice to make the figure depicted a scholar or "philosopher." Staircases—whether spiral or not—were not an attribute of philosophy in the early 17th century. Similar observations argue against identifying the main figure as an "alchemist," a subject that would allow for other figures, such as an assistant tending a fire. The objects depicted suggest a domestic setting, yet the improbable architecture speaks more for a history than a genre subject. The French art historian Jean-Marie Clarke [6] suggests that the scene is ultimately derived from the Book of Tobit or Tobias, one of Rembrandt's favorite Old Testament sources.[7] The only objection to this interpretation is that, apart from the two main figures—the blind Tobit and his wife Anna— there are no identifying attributes, such as Anna's spinning wheel. Nevertheless, a plausible interpretation of the scene is Tobit and Anna waiting for the return of their only son, Tobias. This is supported by an 18th-century source identifying a painting of the same dimensions by Rembrandt representing a "Composition with Tobit and a winding stair."[8] Earlier inventory mentions of a "winding stair with an old man sitting on a chair" or "winding stair" attributed to Rembrandt could just as well refer to the companion painting long attributed to Rembrandt, but now given to Salomon Koninck.[9] Although the title in the Louvre's publications remains Philosophe en méditation, catalogues of Rembrandt's painted oeuvre, starting with Bredius (1935) identify the subject more soberly as a "Scholar in an Interior with a Winding Stair."[10]

The companion painting Philosopher in Contemplation or with an Open Book

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The best explanation for the long-standing misinterpretation of the Philosopher in Meditation lies in the fact that, in the middle of the 18th century, it was sold together with a pendant of identical size (28 x 33.5 cm) that presented similar motifs—including a spiral staircase—and that was also attributed to Rembrandt. The paintings were exhibited together and titled interchangeably Philosophe en méditation and Philosophe en contemplation, or referred to simply as the Philosophes. [11] The companion painting shows an old man in a vaulted interior seated in front of a table at a window on which we can see books, a globe, and a crucifix. These objects and his solitude make him a much better candidate for philosophical endeavor than the old man in the alleged Philosopher in Meditation. In spite of the obvious differences in the composition and execution, no one called its attribution to Rembrandt in doubt. The great exception is the American art historian John C. Van Dyke, who whittled Rembrandt's oeuvre down to less than fifty paintings and made short shrift of the Louvre's Philosophers: "Small pictures over which, in the past, there has been much spilling of good printer's ink with no marked results. The pictures are not wonderful..."[12]. In 1955, examinations with X-rays and infrared photography at the laboratory of the Louvre revealed notable differences in treatment and caused this attribution to be dropped.[13] Jacques Foucart, Curator for Dutch and Fleming Painting at the Louvre, like Horst Gerson (1968)[14] and Werner Sumowski (1983)[15], attributes this work to Salomon Koninck (1609-1656), a Rembrandt imitator, dating it to 1640-45 and titling it Philosopher in Contemplation or Philosopher with an Open Book.[16] Yet the real credit for the attribution to Koninck should go to John C. Van Dyke, who wrote: "In fact, one may be heretical enough to think that someone like Koninck or Dou may have painted them..." [17]The subject matter and details of the Koninck picture seem to have been directly inspired by a Rembrandt etching dated 1642 and representing St. Jerome in a Dark Chamber (Bartsch 105), which is the only other known work by Rembrandt that features a complete helical staircase.[18] In the last analysis, the only thing that the pendant has in common with the Philosopher in Meditation is the medium and format, which reflects more on Koninck's intentions than on those of Rembrandt.

The Rembrandt Research Project and Disattribution

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In the second volume of its Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, which covers the years 1631-1634, the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) rejected the attribution to Rembrandt of the Philosopher in Meditation. Until then, and except for the "heretical" John C. Van Dyke, this attribution had been unanimously accepted by experts and art historians. The RRP did not introduce any new objective or documentary evidence, but based its judgment on an assessment of Rembrandt's "habits," an appraisal of the painting's style, and the difficulty of fitting it within Rembrandt's production in 1632 or the later 1630s.[19] The RRP's judgment was analyzed by Jean-Marie Clarke [20] who pointed out, among other things, that the RRP may have had a special stake in rejecting this painting, as the following quote suggests: "In the later part of the 18th century the painting enjoyed a great reputation in France as Le Philosophe en contemplation, and it helped to determine the image of Rembrandt's art to an unwarranted extent."[21] This disattribution was not accepted by the Louvre and other Rembrandt scholars, [22] and the newly configured RRP seems to have taken a more moderate view of the issue since. In the fifth volume of the Corpus (2011), which covers "small history paintings," the painting is discussed by the current RRP director, Ernst van de Wetering, in terms that clearly imply Rembrandt's authorship.[23]

Esoteric, psychological and philosophical interpretations

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In a lecture given at the Goetheanum in Dornach (1916), the ex-theosophist and founder of the Anthroposophical Society, Rudolf Steiner, described the Louvre Philosopher as the "purest expression of light and dark... All that you see here—the architecture and all the other features—merely provided the occasion for the real work of Art, which lies in the distribution of light and dark." This, he held, was precisely the essence of Rembrandt's art. However, it is not clear which of the two Louvre Philosophers he showed in his "lantern" slides.[24] The caption to an illustration of the painting (reversed) in the psychoanalyst C. G. Jung's Man and His Symbols (1964) reads: "The inward-looking old man provides an image of Jung's belief that each of us must explore his own unconscious."[25] Jean-Marie Clarke (1980) advanced a psychological interpretation based on the circular form of the composition and the Yin-Yang-like distribution of light, reading the painting as a Mandala in the Jungian sense: as archetypal symbol of the integrated Self. Further, he interpreted the concentricity of the composition and wealth of circular motifs as metaphors for the underlying theme of the painting: the eye and Vision. Like Julius Held (1964), Clarke believes that the drawing dated ca. 1630 at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (Benesch 64) with the caption "HARMAN GERRITS van der Rhijn" written in Rembrandt's hand that shows his father in a pose simlar to that of Tobit here, suggests that he may have been blind at the end of his life[26]. Accordingly, the figure of the blind old man (Tobit) stands for Rembrandt's father (d. 1631), who opposed his son's wish to become an artist and whose vision the young Rembrandt (Tobias) "healed" with the help of the archangel Raphael (a name that symbolizes Art).[27] More recently, Clarke published an interpretation on the internet that relates Rembrandt's composition to the design of his signature in 1632.[28] Jean-Pierre Dautun (1983), a student of the French philosopher Raymond Abellio, offers a detailed phenomenological reading in line with Gnostic ideas, interpreting the painting as "the navel, the omphalos of the luminous hermetic secret that Rembrandt wishes to transmit: the phenomenological secret that the eye of the genius will be given to those who will conquer the genius of the eye. It is the ineffable secret of this transmission itself, the 'thou art that' of this mutus liber that is his painting, as if to permit an Occidental satori to a koan of his own devise."[29] The French philosophy professor Régine Pietra (1992) published an essay in which she used the painting to illustrate the rhetorical figure of hypotyposis[30]; Rembrandt's painting, with its interplay of light and dark, renders the experience of philosophical meditation visually perceptible.[31] Hypotyposis—in connection with a reading of the painting as depicting a Philosopher in Meditation—informs most of the interpretations that are to be found on the Web, occult or otherwise. The Dutch philosopher Otto B. Wiersma (1999) published an article on the internet that he summarizes in these terms: "The painting of Rembrandt Philosophe en méditation (1632, Louvre Paris) can be characterized as a pictorial meditation on the miracle of vision. A better title would be Méditation visionnaire, because the painting catches the eye in more than one sense."[32] A discussion of the Philosopher in Meditation along essentially Gurdjeffian lines can be found on the Objective Art website (2011).[33].






References

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  1. ^ Abraham Bredius, Rembrandt Gemälde, Phaidon Verlag, Vienna, 1935, 18: "Gelehrter in einem Raum mit Wendeltreppe."
  2. ^ Jacques Foucart, Les Peintures de Rembrandt au Louvre, Éditions de la R.M.N., Paris, 198, 19-23, 89.
  3. ^ See the Provenance in J. Bruyn, B. Haak, H. Levie, P.J.J. van Thiel, E. van de Wetering, Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. II, 1631-1634, Martinus Frijhof, Dordrecht, Boston and Lancaster, 1986, 644.
  4. ^ An obvious example is the engraving of the painting by Louis de Surugue, père, in Pierre-François Basan, Receuil d'estampes gravées d'après les tableaux du cabinet de Monseigneur le duc de Choiseul, Paris, 1771. The third figure does not appear in the turn-of-the-century engraving by Timothy Cole in John Charles Van Dyke, Timothy Cole, Old Dutch and Flemish Masters Engraved by Timothy Cole With Critical Notes by John C. Van Dyke and Comments by the Engraver, The Century Co., New York, 1901, p. 32.
  5. ^ Jean-Marie Clarke, "Le Philosophe en méditation, de Rembrandt," Cahiers de Psychologie de l'art et de la culture, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 6, 1980, 138-9.
  6. ^ Jean-Marie Clarke, "Le Philosophe en méditation du Louvre: un tableau signé 'RHL-van Rijn' et daté '1632,'" Revue du Louvre, 3, 1990, 198.
  7. ^ Julius Held, Rembrandt and the Book of Tobit, Gehenna Press, Northampton MA, 1964.
  8. ^ Corpus, II, p. 644: "Eene ordonnatie met Tobias, ende eenen draeyenden trap door Rimbrant" at the sale of the collection of the Comte de Fraula, Brussels, 1738. The Rembrandt Research Project dismisses this evidence as "certainly incorrect since there are two women in the picture and there is no specific motif from the story of Tobias," 642.
  9. ^ See the Provenance in Corpus, II, p. 644: "Een wenteltrap van Rembrandt van Ryn met een oudt manneken sittende op eenen stoel" (1673) and ""Een wenteltrap van Rembrandt van Ryn" (1687). Here, as Clarke (1990) points out, the RRP uses the mention of a winding stair to support their hypothesis that the painting was intended as a school exercise, but ignore the mention of the artist's name as documentary evidence.
  10. ^ Horst Gerson, Rembrandt Paintings, Abraxas Books, Harrison House, N.Y., 1968, 492. Gary Schwarz, Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings, Penguin Books, London, 1985, 198: cat. 214, Scholar in a room with a winding stair.
  11. ^ A typical example is Vincent Van Gogh in his letter of May 31, 1875 to his brother Theo, in which he tells of his visit to the Louvre: "I wish you could see the small Rembrandts there, the 'Supper at Emmaus,' and two pendants, 'The Philosophers." http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let034/letter.html#n-6
  12. ^ John Charles Van Dyke, Rembrandt and His School; a critical study of the master and his pupils with a new assignment of their pictures, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1923, 114-5.
  13. ^ Madeleine Hours, "Rembrandt. Observations et présentation de radiographies exécutées d'après les portraits et compositions du musée du Louvre,“ Bulletin des Laboratoires du Musée du Louvre, 1961, 6, 3-43.
  14. ^ Gerson, Op. cit.
  15. ^ Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. III, PVA, Landau, 1983.
  16. ^ Foucart, 1983, 98.
  17. ^ Van Dyke, 1923, loc. cit. He continues with: "The second picture, with the light coming from the left, seems a companion piece, but there may be some doubt about its being by Koninck. Its assignment is tentative."
  18. ^ Clarke, 1990, 194-5.
  19. ^ "C 51, Old Man in an interior with a winding staircase." Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, II, 638-44.
  20. ^ Clarke, 1990, 191-200.
  21. ^ Corpus., II, 642.
  22. ^ Roelof van Straten, Young Rembrandt: The Leiden Years, 1606-1632, Foleor, Leiden, 2006, 229: "It is not understandable that the Rembrandt Research Project does not accept the picture as an original work by the master."
  23. ^ Ernst van de Wetering et al., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. V, The Small History Paintings, Springer, Dordrecht, 2011, 197.
  24. ^ Rudolf Steiner, "The History of Art: Rembrandt" (lecture 5), November 28, 1916, Dornach (Eng. translation, Rudolf Steiner Library, Anthroposophical Society of America, N.Y., 9).
  25. ^ Carl Gustav Jung (ed.), Joseph L. Henderson, Marie-Louise von Franz, Aniela Jaffé and Jolande Jacobi, Man and His Symbols, Doubleday, Garden City N.Y., 1964, 103.
  26. ^ Clarke, 1990, 198.
  27. ^ Clarke, 1980, 115-86.
  28. ^ Jean-Marie Clarke, 2006, http:/www/rembrandt-signature-file.com, article 11 (Br. 431).
  29. ^ Jean-Pierre Dautun, "Le Philosophe en méditation de Rembrandt," Cahiers Raymond Abellio, no. 1, 1983, 42-51.
  30. ^ Defined as a "lively description of an action, event, person, condition, passion, etc. used for creating the illusion of reality. See http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/H/hypotyposis.htm
  31. ^ Régine Pietra, Sage comme un image. Figures de la philosophie dans les arts, Editions du Félin, 1992, 105-15.
  32. ^ Otto Wiersma, "Heet is en kunst om zu lezen. De dubbelzinnigheid van spiegelbeelden-Rembrandt en Salomon Koninck," 1999: http://www.ottobwiersma.nl/philosophy/kunst986.htm
  33. ^ Objective Art (2011), http://objectiveandsacredart.ning.com/forum/topics/the-philosopher-in-meditation
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