Rembrandt
Painting the people of the book.
Art historians have almost completely ignored the many connections between the great Old Master and the Jews of Venice. Is there more to be said?
Michelangelo’s universally admired depiction of one of history’s most famous Jews is not the least bit Jewish. Take, on the other hand, Rembrandt.
To perceive without seeing, and to utilize sight to sharpen rather than to detract from insight, is an essential Jewish task. This is the challenge that Rembrandt allows us to glimpse.
Like Rembrandt’s, Steen’s art reflects a tremendous effort to humanize Jewish figures.
What Rembrandt’s etching of Joseph and his family shows us about Judaism, and mankind.
If Judaism’s idea of art is one that can truly represent our frail, fallible humanity, then Rembrandt, who captured faces “without any attempt to beautify them,” is the artist for Jews.
Gentile artists who portrayed different aspects of the Jewish people.
Not only strikingly beautiful, his painting of Moses holding the Ten Commandments also happens to be one of the most authentically Jewish works of art ever created.