Over the years I've written several blog entries about this painting. It became real to me years ago when I was studying Henri Nouwen's book, The Return of the Prodigal Son. In it he shares his profound spiritual experience when viewing the painting at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. In the study we learned all about Rembrandt's painting and the Bible parable itself, as well as the sometimes fragile spirit of Henri Nouwen.
Nouwen says this about seeing the original painting for the first time (even though he'd seen many reproductions:)
I was stunned by its majestic beauty. Its size, larger than life; its abundant reds, browns and yellows; its shadowy recesses and bright foreground, but most of all the light-enveloped embrace of father and son surrounded by four mysterious bystanders, all of this gripped me with an intensity far beyond my anticipation.
He spent more than four hours with the painting that day.
And then, this amazing thing happened to me. In 2012 David and I went to St. Petersburg and saw the painting. I wasn't moved as much as Nouwen - but I was deeply moved. I didn't understand my feelings and didn't have adequate words to describe them. And now, on this Labor Day morning, when I got out of bed and looked at my phone, I saw that my son and his wife, who are traveling in St. Petersburg, were looking at the painting. Their photo shows the outlines of the additional figures in the painting that we can't usually see in reproductions.
So now I can't get this painting out of my head - again. Not that I even want to. I think for the first time I'm allowing myself to be the child welcomed home by a loving parent - not something I ever experienced in this life - and it's almost too much for me.
Not only do some art scholars consider The Return of the Prodigal Son to be the greatest picture ever painted, most biblical scholars consider The Return of the Prodigal Son to be Jesus' greatest parable.
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