The Evangelist Matthew
Artwork by Rembrandt • 1661
🖼️ Reproduce this artwork — 📗 Book on Rembrandt on Amazon
About this artwork - painting analysis
Created in 1661, The Evangelist Matthew by Rembrandt van Rijn illustrates the late virtuosity of the Dutch master in the art of spiritual portraiture. The painting depicts Saint Matthew, author of the first gospel, represented as an elderly man with abundant white beard, wearing an oriental turban, absorbed in the writing of his sacred text. Behind him, an angel with golden hair leans delicately forward, embodying the divine inspiration guiding his pen. The pyramidal composition, centered on the saint's face and expressive hands, radiates profound meditative intensity. The evangelist, seated before a large open volume, holds a quill while his left hand rests on his chest in a gesture of introspection.
The chromatic palette reveals the genius of Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro: warm browns, luminous ochres and deep shadows envelop the scene in an intimate and reverent atmosphere. The light, Rembrandt's true signature, mysteriously emanates from Matthew's face and that of the angel, creating a striking contrast with the dark background. This technique of tenebrism, inherited from Caravaggio but transformed by the Dutch painter, imparts an almost theatrical dimension to the representation. The visible brushstrokes and thick paint bear witness to the pictorial freedom of the Dutch Golden Age, a period during which Rembrandt produced his most introspective works.
This canvas belongs to a series devoted to the evangelists, commissioned in the artist's final years, marked by financial difficulties but also by exceptional stylistic maturity. Housed in the Louvre Museum, it illustrates Rembrandt's evolution toward painting stripped of artifice, concentrated on the spiritual essence of the subject. The work remains a powerful testimony to the capacity of Northern Baroque to convey the ineffable, making Rembrandt one of the greatest interpreters of human condition in the face of the divine.
If you appreciate "The Evangelist Matthew" and other paintings by Rembrandt, we offer you 10% off the purchase of an art poster from our partner europosters with the promo code GRANDSPEINTRES10.
Image license: faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional public domain work of art.
