Object of the Week
November 10, 2014
Object of the Week
By: Hayden DeBruler ‘17
Rembrandt Van Rijn
The Return of the Prodigal Son / 1636
Etching on paper
DePauw University Permanent Art Collection
Rembrandt’s print centers on the kneeling man. Wearing only a cloth, he is taken in by another who is fully dressed. The ragged man, kneeling, bears the darkest hatching in the print and simultaneously shows us his pain and relief. His relief, however, comes only from the bowing of another man’s back, the weight of the column behind him supported by his shoulders. His family—another weight—peers on. He is the support of the entire scene, yet his feet are not braced, his back knee bent; there is tension in his imminent fall. The refugee has nothing but his staff. It is a line that parallels his legs and offers but small support to the composition. At the same time, it also points to the past from which he came. A contrast between this white face to the left and the cluttered action to the right seems to predict the future for both men, the refugee facing a support far greater than his cane; the supporter buckled, he faces the erasure of his strength, perhaps even his eventual return as a refugee, in need of support. The delicate transaction between men and futures, curved in what becomes a yin and yang, brings to mind poet André Machado’s line from Moral Proverbs, “a solitary heart is no heart at all,” each heart offering as much as it can.
Hayden DeBruler is from Greenville, South Carolina. DePauw Class of 2017, Creative Writing and Art History Major. She is a volunteer with the Peeler Art Center Galleries.
The Rembrandt print and other works from the university art collection can be seen by students and faculty by making an appointment with Christie Anderson. Please contact her at cyanderson@depauw.edu