The Gita and Rembrandt

from a forthcoming book by Dale A. Johnson

Wisdom is Not What You Think

Saskia: his wife as Minerva

Wisdom is found not only in word but also in image. Christian artists have often shown the same courage as inter-religious theologians in seeking Christ outside of scripture and the narrow confines of one's own religious tradition. Just as Thomas Aquinas used Aristotle to perceive God through natural theology and enrich his Christian experience, so too did Rembrandt through the subject matter of his paintings and drawings.
While Rembrandt never read the Gita, that we know of, in 17th century Protestant Holland, the artist reached down into the soul of human and universal consciousness and drew upon a wisdom that links his work to the ancient Indian literature. For Rembrandt, Christianity was his source of wisdom and inspiration. Yet, he drew from a larger field of wisdom literature and image for his artistic sources. Greek science was transforming his age through the rediscovery of Aristotle, Plato, and others. The Greek goddess Miverva showed up in Rembrandt's paintings and etching frequently.
Mivera was also known as Athena and Pallas. This was the goddess of war and wisdom. It is interesting to note that war and wisdom are combined attributes. The same is true in the Gita. The path toward God in the Gita is in the context of war. Krishna speaks to his friend about war. The answers to all his friends questions have to do with wisdom, seeking it, finding it, acquiring it.
Rembrandt is mostly known for his Christian images. But Rembrandt also drew upon the humanist strength of the Greeks. One of his favorite symbols was the images of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom. He used his wife to illustrate this great symbol.
Rembrandt met Saskia Uylenburgh in 1633 through her cousin, the dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh (c.1587-1661), who had been Rembrandt’s business partner since 1631. Saskia was born in 1612, daughter of Rombertus Uylenburgh and Sjukje Wieckesdr
Aessinga, who died in 1619 when Saskia, the youngestof eight children, was only seven years old. With the death of her father five years later, Saskia was left an orphan. She was brought up by her elder sister and brother-in-law in a rural Friesland village. No doubt Saskia’s relationship with Rembrandt developed during
visits to her cousin Hendrik’s house in Amsterdam, where Rembrandt was living. She quickly became a frequent sitter for the artist. A reliable touchstone for her actual appearance is the intimate silver point drawing on vellum inscribed later by Rembrandt: ‘this is the likeness of my wife Saskia aged 21 years old, made the third day after our betrothal, 8 June 1633’(Staatliche Museen, Berlin). She wears a wide straw hat decorated with flowers, holds a flower in one hand, and gazes out with evident happiness. She became Rembrandt’s wife on 22 June 1634, the year that she first appears identifiably in his
etchings (no. 36). She sat for him many more times, but none of the later images recapture the absorbed pleasure of the early drawing. She is usually playing out a role in period costume or, in the later etchings, we see her confined or ill in bed. Her features appear distracted and increasingly drawn as she suffered three
children dying in infancy and approached the final illness of tuberculosis that curtailed her life in 1642, when she was not yet thirty. Her will made Rembrandt sole guardian of their only surviving son, Titus, who had been born just seven months before her death. It also dictated (as was usual) that Rembrandt would forfeit his interest in Saskia’s property if he ever remarried; for whatever reason, he never did.
Saskia was the model for the image of Minerva in several paintings and drawings. Minerva is the Latin name of the goddess of wisdom. It is interesting to note that she is also the goddess of war with her shield and helmet nearby. Perhaps the favorite painting of Minerva by Rembrandt is Minerva in her study. It was a favorite image for scholars of the period.
The painting of Minerva was done around the year 1635. There was a great fascination in Protestant Europe for this Greek goddess. Roman Catholic artists were equally fascinated with the image of Minerva due to the emergence of Greek science and culture through translations of Arabic to Latin. Defeated Crusaders brought back to Europe the wisdom of the Middle East who in turn had benefited from Syriac Christians who translated ancient Greek works to Arabic from the 8th-13th centuries in Baghdad, Gunashapur, and Merv . The tomb of Pope Gregory XIII featured Minerva pulling back the veil to reveal perhaps the greatest achievement of the Gregorian period: the Gregorian calendar.
Minerva is featured on the right side pulling back the veil
Greek science made possible the European Renaissance. It is fitfully illustrated on the Tomb of Gregory XIII.
In the 16th century the Temple of Minerva had been discovered in Rome. It caused quite a sensation because of the popularity of all things Greek. The Franciscans turned the archaeological discovery into a church that stands to this day. Later excavations revealed that the site was actually a temple dedicated to Hercules.
Minerva echoes the deeper psychological and philosophical connections between conflict and wisdom. In the Bhagavad Gita war and the path to wisdom are connected. In Islam, one of the four forms of Jihad has to do with the inner conflict and the struggle to find God and his wisdom. Zen koans force the student to struggle with the irrational forces within the linguistic puzzels as a path to serenity and Nirvana. Each of these major religions demonstrate within there tenets the near universal relationship between conflict and the path to true wisdom.
For Rembrant, Minerva is embodied in his wife. The conflict and struggle of life must have created such turmoil in the heart of the artist. To see his wife fight against disease and eventually succumb at age thirty, must have tested the inner faith of Rembrandt. In a way, by figuring his wife in the form of Minerva, the artist paid tribute and honor to his wife who fought with every breath. Who knows her anguish at losing her first three infant children to death. Sorrow and angst plauged the home of Rembrant at times. Yet, they fought back through art and faith in the mystery of a God who must have seemed so remote at times. What better way to characterize serenity, hope, and wisdom in the face of life's conflicts than in the detached and serene face of Saskia.
Rembrandt illustrates that wisdom is not what you think but what you feel and experience.