The Descent from the Cross by Torchlight

From early on, Rembrandt was famed and admired for his handling of light. As early as 1699, the French artist, printmaker and critic Roger de Piles noted that ‘He had a supreme understanding of light and dark.’ (quoted by E. Hinterding, in: Bikker, 2024, p. 173). The first cataloguer of Rembrandt’s prints, Edmé-François Gersaint, wrote in 1744: ‘There has never been an artist so adept at using light and dark: his touch, both in his paintings and in his prints, was very skilled […] his reputation is entirely due to his genius, his reflections and his continuous study of the effects of light in nature, which he portrayed with a surprising exactitude and force.’ (quoted ibid.)
The Descent from the Cross by Torchlight is a prime example. Few of his prints are as dramatically lit, and in the present impression, this is realised to perfection. The cleanly wiped elements stand out starkly against the velvety, pitch-black background. Most startling is the hand reaching out of the dark towards the head of the dead Christ, the pivotal point of the composition - and an unforgettable gesture.
Some areas are left with a veil of tone, such as the top of the winding sheet, the lower part of the Cross, and the man standing on the right, to create an atmospheric middle tone. The foreground still catches some light from the torch, which appears to be the only light source, while the figures in the background at right disappear almost entirely into darkness.
If the lighting of the scene is daring, so is the composition. The central event of the narrative, the dead Christ being taken down from the Cross, is pushed into the upper left corner of the image and partially cut off. We see the dead body, some of the men lowering him down and the figure holding the torch. The Cross itself is not fully visible. The viewpoint is from the lower right towards he upper left, and the first detail that comes into focus is the foot of Christ still nailed to the Cross, only then does the gaze follow the legs towards His torso and lifeless head.
In the foreground we see the bier covered with the shroud to carry the dead body, rising at a slight angle from the lower left towards the right. The image is thus formally constructed along two trajectories: the winding sheet and the whole group around the Cross point downwards, the bier upwards. These verticals meet at the shadowy figure crouched over to arrange the shroud. This is Joseph of Arimathea, the true protagonist of the event:
When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. (Matthew 27:57-60)
The print belongs to a small group of mid-sized prints, all created in or around 1654, on the Life of Christ. It may be that Rembrandt had envisaged a larger series, but he realised only four subjects: The Presentation in the Temple, in the dark Manner, the present Descent from the Cross by Torchlight, The Entombment and Christ at Emmaus: the larger Plate. In all of them, the depiction of light is the formal challenge that Rembrandt set himself, be it the supernatural light emanating from the apparition of Jesus in Christ at Emmaus, the barely lit internal spaces in the Entombment and the Presentation in the Temple, or the torchlight in the present plate, the latter three being true night scenes.