拍品专文
Rembrandt’s stubborn devotion to his art, and to printmaking in particular, is nowhere more apparent than in Christ presented to the People (‘Ecce Homo’), especially as we consider the circumstances under which he created this stupendous and majestic print. ‘His constant experiments indicate the pleasure [Rembrandt] took in the actual working on the plate… Only a man in love with the technique could have developed such mastery, but unlike several other distinguished printmakers, he controlled his ardour for the medium to the extent that it became the primary raison d’être.’ (White, 1999, p. 4).
1655 was a challenging year for the artist, as he became unable to afford the repayments for his house. Bankruptcy was looming, new commissions were not coming in, and he began selling his possessions at auction. Over the previous couple of years, he had been painting little, and completed only a few, albeit astonishing paintings, including Aristotle with a Bust of Homer (1653; Metropolitan Museum of Art), and Portrait of Jan Six (1654; Six Foundation, Amsterdam). In 1655, he had just completed his work on Christ crucified between the two Thieves (‘The Three Crosses’), his largest, most ambitious and experimental print so far, by radically changing the plate and reprinting it in the fourth state (see lot 29). Rather than settling for easier, more commercial work – either in painting or in etching – Rembrandt at this point decided to create another monumental print, once again in pure drypoint, equally complex and ambitious, and just as radical: Christ presented to the People (‘Ecce Homo’). He must have felt that, in working on The Three Crosses, he had discovered something only he could do: to draw directly and vigorously into the copper of the plate and create an image of such immediacy and dramatic force as had never been achieved before in the print medium - and he wanted to do it again. Remarkably, Rembrandt chose to depict an earlier stage in the Passion of Christ, the moment His fate is finally sealed:
Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. 23 And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. 24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. (Matthew 27:17-25)
The starting point, once again, may have been a print by the great Dutch printmaker of the previous century, Lucas van Leyden (circa 1494-1533): The Large Ecce Homo of 1510. Until then, Lucas’s engraving was the definitive depiction in print of this biblical event, a highly ambitious, panoramic, multi-figure composition – the obvious work for Rembrandt to compete with. What would happen, Rembrandt seem to have thought, if I moved the viewpoint much closer to the central figures? Instead of allowing us to observe the event from a comfortable distance, he decided to thrust us almost into it. Christopher White described this strategy best: ‘In the design of his compositions of the 1650s Rembrandt favoured simpler patterns, balancing horizontal accents against verticals. His figures acquired a greater scale and monumentality within their setting. The background, whether architectural or landscape, is brought forward in direct relationship with the figures, playing an essential role in establishing he overall design. This is nowhere more overpoweringly evident that in Christ Presented to the People, located in an imposing architectural setting that appears to be an inner courtyard. The various levels allow the introduction, without crowding, of a variety of participants and human reactions. Above all the simple starkness of the architecture, with its sense of claustrophobia, movingly conveys Christ’s spiritual isolation.’ (White, 1997, p. 384)
If The Three Crosses can be called ‘cinematic’, with all the frantic movement, high drama and intense lighting, then Ecce Homo is ‘theatrical’: the stage is set and the tragedy unfolds, slowly and inevitably. Christ is presented on a raised terrace in front of Pilate’s palace. He stands barefoot and dressed with a loin cloth at the edge of the platform, his hands tied together in front of him. Pilate, with the attributes of his high office and power – turban, large cloak and long staff – stands to the left. His head slightly tilted, he points towards Christ with a questioning gesture: ‘What shall I do then with Jesus…’? Slightly behind and between them stands the other prisoner, the murderer Barabbas, tied to the same rope as Christ. Their three heads are framed by the darkness of the palace portal behind them. On the dais, they are surrounded by soldiers with raised spears and halberds, and officials including a scribe taking notes of the proceedings and a valet carrying a ewer and basin, ready for Pilates’ ceremonial washing of hands. Behind Christ, just above his right shoulder, somebody is raising a hammer, a foreshadowing of Him being nailed to the Cross. On the façade above and to the left and right of the portal are two caryatids, symbols of the virtues of stately power: Fortitude and Justice. Set back on either side of the building, various figures are seen in the window, watching the scene below. The veiled woman in the window on the left is Pilate’s wife, who had been tormented by a foreboding dream. Through the window next to her, we see a soldier in armour taking her pleading message to Pilate.
In the first five states, on the ground below the terrace, a small crowd has been brought together by the judgement: men and women, youths and children, most seen from behind or in a lost profile. Others are standing even closer to the edge of the image at left, including a splendidly dressed commander with a large plumed hat. All eyes are directed at Jesus, some hands gesture towards Him. On the right, a small group of dignitaries in cloaks and hats is standing close together, presumably the ‘chief priests and elders’ mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew. One bearded man steps forward – the only figure truly in motion in this image – and casts an ominous shadow onto the wall of the dais.
Having worked exclusively in drypoint and printed the plate in considerable numbers over the first five states, Rembrandt ran into the same problem as with The Three Crosses: the burr had slowly worn off and later impressions of the fifth state began to look a bit thin. Once again, he decided to transform the image rather than simply reworking it. In the sixth state he removed all the figures in front of the tribune but kept the ones at the sides, including the commander at left and the old man casting a shadow at right, and made a few other, smaller changes. This state exists in a single trial proof at the British Museum. In the seventh state, he introduced the two dark arches with the stone bust of a river god or perhaps Neptune in between. This state too is an intermediate state and is known in three impressions only. In the present eight state, he somewhat reduced the presence of the stone bust and further darkened the entrance to the caves. Now he considered this new version of his Ecce Homo complete and printed a small edition. A total of 37 impressions of this state are known, including the present one.
The significance of the two dark portals below the dais has been interpreted in various ways, but it seems clear that they represent an abyss, an opening into the underworld, as if the crowd demanding the condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus has fallen into darkness. They could also be - in reference perhaps to Mantegna's or Dürer's prints of Christ in Limbo - represent the gates of purgatory, into which Christ would descend following His death on the Cross to save the just souls. Whatever the precise meaning of this radical transformation of the plate, it shows Rembrandt urge to experiment and his unique ability to alter a composition and thereby the narrative.
Over three hundred years later, Rembrandt's Christ presented to the People would inspire another printmaking wizard, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), to create one of his last great prints, in 1970: Ecce Homo, d'après Rembrandt.
1655 was a challenging year for the artist, as he became unable to afford the repayments for his house. Bankruptcy was looming, new commissions were not coming in, and he began selling his possessions at auction. Over the previous couple of years, he had been painting little, and completed only a few, albeit astonishing paintings, including Aristotle with a Bust of Homer (1653; Metropolitan Museum of Art), and Portrait of Jan Six (1654; Six Foundation, Amsterdam). In 1655, he had just completed his work on Christ crucified between the two Thieves (‘The Three Crosses’), his largest, most ambitious and experimental print so far, by radically changing the plate and reprinting it in the fourth state (see lot 29). Rather than settling for easier, more commercial work – either in painting or in etching – Rembrandt at this point decided to create another monumental print, once again in pure drypoint, equally complex and ambitious, and just as radical: Christ presented to the People (‘Ecce Homo’). He must have felt that, in working on The Three Crosses, he had discovered something only he could do: to draw directly and vigorously into the copper of the plate and create an image of such immediacy and dramatic force as had never been achieved before in the print medium - and he wanted to do it again. Remarkably, Rembrandt chose to depict an earlier stage in the Passion of Christ, the moment His fate is finally sealed:
Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. 23 And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. 24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. (Matthew 27:17-25)
The starting point, once again, may have been a print by the great Dutch printmaker of the previous century, Lucas van Leyden (circa 1494-1533): The Large Ecce Homo of 1510. Until then, Lucas’s engraving was the definitive depiction in print of this biblical event, a highly ambitious, panoramic, multi-figure composition – the obvious work for Rembrandt to compete with. What would happen, Rembrandt seem to have thought, if I moved the viewpoint much closer to the central figures? Instead of allowing us to observe the event from a comfortable distance, he decided to thrust us almost into it. Christopher White described this strategy best: ‘In the design of his compositions of the 1650s Rembrandt favoured simpler patterns, balancing horizontal accents against verticals. His figures acquired a greater scale and monumentality within their setting. The background, whether architectural or landscape, is brought forward in direct relationship with the figures, playing an essential role in establishing he overall design. This is nowhere more overpoweringly evident that in Christ Presented to the People, located in an imposing architectural setting that appears to be an inner courtyard. The various levels allow the introduction, without crowding, of a variety of participants and human reactions. Above all the simple starkness of the architecture, with its sense of claustrophobia, movingly conveys Christ’s spiritual isolation.’ (White, 1997, p. 384)
If The Three Crosses can be called ‘cinematic’, with all the frantic movement, high drama and intense lighting, then Ecce Homo is ‘theatrical’: the stage is set and the tragedy unfolds, slowly and inevitably. Christ is presented on a raised terrace in front of Pilate’s palace. He stands barefoot and dressed with a loin cloth at the edge of the platform, his hands tied together in front of him. Pilate, with the attributes of his high office and power – turban, large cloak and long staff – stands to the left. His head slightly tilted, he points towards Christ with a questioning gesture: ‘What shall I do then with Jesus…’? Slightly behind and between them stands the other prisoner, the murderer Barabbas, tied to the same rope as Christ. Their three heads are framed by the darkness of the palace portal behind them. On the dais, they are surrounded by soldiers with raised spears and halberds, and officials including a scribe taking notes of the proceedings and a valet carrying a ewer and basin, ready for Pilates’ ceremonial washing of hands. Behind Christ, just above his right shoulder, somebody is raising a hammer, a foreshadowing of Him being nailed to the Cross. On the façade above and to the left and right of the portal are two caryatids, symbols of the virtues of stately power: Fortitude and Justice. Set back on either side of the building, various figures are seen in the window, watching the scene below. The veiled woman in the window on the left is Pilate’s wife, who had been tormented by a foreboding dream. Through the window next to her, we see a soldier in armour taking her pleading message to Pilate.
In the first five states, on the ground below the terrace, a small crowd has been brought together by the judgement: men and women, youths and children, most seen from behind or in a lost profile. Others are standing even closer to the edge of the image at left, including a splendidly dressed commander with a large plumed hat. All eyes are directed at Jesus, some hands gesture towards Him. On the right, a small group of dignitaries in cloaks and hats is standing close together, presumably the ‘chief priests and elders’ mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew. One bearded man steps forward – the only figure truly in motion in this image – and casts an ominous shadow onto the wall of the dais.
Having worked exclusively in drypoint and printed the plate in considerable numbers over the first five states, Rembrandt ran into the same problem as with The Three Crosses: the burr had slowly worn off and later impressions of the fifth state began to look a bit thin. Once again, he decided to transform the image rather than simply reworking it. In the sixth state he removed all the figures in front of the tribune but kept the ones at the sides, including the commander at left and the old man casting a shadow at right, and made a few other, smaller changes. This state exists in a single trial proof at the British Museum. In the seventh state, he introduced the two dark arches with the stone bust of a river god or perhaps Neptune in between. This state too is an intermediate state and is known in three impressions only. In the present eight state, he somewhat reduced the presence of the stone bust and further darkened the entrance to the caves. Now he considered this new version of his Ecce Homo complete and printed a small edition. A total of 37 impressions of this state are known, including the present one.
The significance of the two dark portals below the dais has been interpreted in various ways, but it seems clear that they represent an abyss, an opening into the underworld, as if the crowd demanding the condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus has fallen into darkness. They could also be - in reference perhaps to Mantegna's or Dürer's prints of Christ in Limbo - represent the gates of purgatory, into which Christ would descend following His death on the Cross to save the just souls. Whatever the precise meaning of this radical transformation of the plate, it shows Rembrandt urge to experiment and his unique ability to alter a composition and thereby the narrative.
Over three hundred years later, Rembrandt's Christ presented to the People would inspire another printmaking wizard, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), to create one of his last great prints, in 1970: Ecce Homo, d'après Rembrandt.