Henri Nouwen had the well-deserved reputation as a man of many spiritual gifts, which he directed toward ways of healing and enlightenment. Beyond working with communities and groups in various spiritual discernment and support kinds of ways, Nouwen shared his gifts with the wider world through his public speaking and his writing. Author of many books, perhaps few are as moving as his meditations on the famous painting, 'The Return of the Prodigal Son' by Rembrandt.
One of the most impressive aspects of the painting, given that Rembrandt was a Protestant artist, is that it incorporates elements that go beyond the basic story of the bible. Quite often, artists of the Protestant side in the first few centuries after the Reformation stuck very closely to the biblical text. Rembrandt's picture of the scene had other members in attendance, members of varying prominence (from the very present man in red robe and headdress on the right, to the vanishing images in the shadows centre and left), and the costume somewhat mixed between contemporary and ancient.
Rembrandt's choice of scene here from the parable is significant. `Rubens portrayed the youth among the pigs, at the moment of degradation; Rembrandt paints the reconciliation. The youth knew he was no longer worthy to be called a son; he hoped to be accepted as a servant.' Author Helen de Borchgrave identifies the prominent man standing on the right as the elder son, but there is some ambiguity in the painting. Nouwen finds the figure to be the elder son, and significantly, points to the same pattern with the elder son that was present with the younger son - he leaves and then returns, albeit in a less dramatic way. `Rembrandt is as much the elder son of the parable as he is the younger,' Nouwen wrote.
Nouwen writes of the God who never stops waiting for us, just as the father never stopped waiting for his wandering son. Nouwen also reflects upon the various other figures around the painting. Nouwen wrote that he had increasing awareness of the others in the painting over time. What are they thinking? Nouwen speculates. 'These bystanders, or observers, allow for all sorts of interpretations.' Nouwen is not just the older son, or the younger son, but also an observer, to this scene, and to more in his life.
Of course, Nouwen had a much longer and more intimate time to spend with the actual Rembrandt painting that most of us have had or will have (I got to see the painting some time ago, back when St. Petersburg was still Leningrad). The idea of the observers making their own interpretations, and the whole scene being subject to multiple interpretations is a very Protestant concept - no magisterium pronouncing what one must think, and, while Protestantism has never been devoid of party-lines to which one should adhere, there is no infallible sense of human response.
The idea of luminosity for the central act, the embrace of the father and son, is also a key element - God receives each of us on individual terms; there is no priest or church intermediary here, but a simple father-son unit, tapping into the key Protestant idea of God-with-each-of-us as individuals, and we are brought into the light. However, there is also a sense of the importance of community, and the `cloud of witnesses' that surrounds us as Christians is also shown here in the figures surrounding the pair.
Perhaps the most significant passage of Nouwen's reflection on the painting for me is this: 'It might sound strange, but God wants to find me as much as, if not more than, I want to find God. Yes, God needs me as much as I need God. God is not the patriarch who stays home, doesn't move, and expects his children to come to him, apologise for their aberrant behaviour, beg for forgiveness, and promise to do better. To the contrary, he leaves the house, ignoring his dignity by running toward them, pays no heed to apologies and promises of change, and brings them to the table richly prepared for them.' Nouwen came to see how different his spiritual journey would be when he no longer thought of God as hiding from him, making things difficult, but rather when God was the seeker, and Nouwen was the one in hiding.
Professor Frank Burch Brown described Rembrandt as being seen as the prime Protestant artist of grace, showing fallibility and suffering human beings who can only rely upon God's grace. Rembrandt is a religious artist, working (in Tillichian terms) to show the ultimate concern that the viewer then approaches. Rembrandt not only has religious material, but approaches it spiritually, religiously. Rembrandt's search for God in the loneliness of the world could have been depicted in the parable of the Prodigal Son, but rather finds expression in the painting of the Good Samaritan, a small-ish painting but a large landscape image, in which the key elements are a darkened world with light coming from the son, and the figures of the story are miniature in comparison to the whole cosmic scene. Again, Rembrandt focuses upon a key point - the point of rescue, similar to the Prodigal's point of reconciliation.
All of these paintings demonstrate symbolic images, which include key virtues, ideas or attributes of God and humanity; they demonstrate narrative images, in which the stories of the parables or biblical events are told; they demonstrate representative images that can be means of meditation, reflection or even devotion - while Rembrandt and other artists of his time would not see their work in the same respect as Eastern Orthodox icon painters would, still their images become the object for work such as Nouwen's book.
