Samson's dazzling
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| Samson's dazzling |
|---|
| Rembrandt van Rijn , 1636 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 205 x 272 cm |
| Städel |
The Blinding of Samsons is a history painting by Rembrandt van Rijn . The 205 centimeter high and 272 centimeter wide picture shows Samson's dazzling and is one of Rembrandt's most important works. The picture is in the collection of the Städel in Frankfurt .
Image description
The picture The Blinding Samson shows an episode from the story of the judge Samson . Samson was a Nazarite , which gave him special strength when he adhered to three conditions, such as the prohibition on cutting his beard and hair. The depicted scene follows on from the cutting of the hair by Delilah , who betrayed him to the Philistines . This aspect of the plot is also taken up in this painting, as Delilah is depicted in the background fleeing with her head of hair and scissors in hand. Rembrandt also presented different aspects of the plot with the other people. After his hair had been cut off, Samson had to be wrestled to the ground and tied up before his eyes were gouged out. Rembrandt conveyed this through the fighters, one of whom enters the scene fearfully, another holds Samson on the ground, one ties him and one pokes out his eyes. The immediate action of the painting is the climax of the story, the blinding with the penetrating knife and the blood splattering. The viewer can, however, reconstruct the entire plot through the image.
Provenance
Rembrandt made the picture The Blinding of Samson on to Constantijn Huygens due to the delayed completion of images of the Passion cycle to bribe them. So this picture passed into his possession. In 1905, the director of the Städel, Ludwig Justi , acquired Simons' s glare from the Schönborn family from the Schönborn-Batthyány palace in Vienna . The painting was not without controversy in Frankfurt due to the drastic representation. The high price of 336,000 marks was raised by the museum association, the city and private donors. Since then, the work has been considered one of the most important in the Städel's collection.
literature
- Christian Tümpel : Rembrandt . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek 2006, ISBN 3-499-50691-2 .
- Kristin Bahre et al. (Ed.): Rembrandt. Genius in search . DuMont Literature and Art, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-8321-7694-2
Individual evidence
- ^ Eva Mongi-Vollmer: Masterpieces in the Städel Museum, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main 2007, page 128.
- ↑ Michael Bockemühl: Rembrandt. Taschen, Cologne 2001. page 20.
- ↑ Michael Bockemühl: Rembrandt. Taschen, Cologne 2001. Pages 18 to 20.
- ↑ Christian Tümpel: Rembrandt in self-testimonies and image documents. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1977. page 65.
- ↑ Information on staedelmuseum.de, accessed on July 15, 2013