The Last Supper at Emmaus : recognizing the missing link between Venetian Renaissance painting and the work of Rembrandt

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In the Christian tradition, the resurrection symbolizes the overcoming of death and the triumph of a second life for the individual redeemed forever. The new religion of salvation also attaches great importance to the gratitude that the living are obliged to show towards this exceptional being who has returned to life. As if Christ, too, needed the definitive, historic configuration that others owe him. The Emmaus episode, recounted in theGospel according to Luke (XXIV, 13-45), is perhaps the most complete manifestation of theanagnorisis of Jesus' life.

In November 2012, at the Gemälde Galerie in Berlin, I saw for the first time a version of the Last Supper at Emmaus, painted by the Venetian Marco Marziale in 1507. I'd been working on this subject for a long time, trying to interpret it in the light of the concept of recognition, but from a very particular type ofanagnorisis, since it involved identifying a dead person returning to the world. The Berlin painting drew my attention for three reasons: 1) Christ, in search of recognition, seems to address himself directly to the viewer, who is outside the scene; 2) Cleophas and his companion are not the only ones to wear the pilgrim's hat and staff: Christ himself shows us these attributes; 3) a few astrological and alchemical signs are displayed on the wings of the hats and on the capes of Jesus and Cleophas. These three features make this painting an exceptional iconographic case. It should also be pointed out that the representation of the Risen Christ as a pilgrim is not a general feature of the treatment of this subject between the ^15th and ^17th centuries. In fact, the situation fluctuates: often Cleophas and his comrade are the only pilgrims; sometimes Christ is too; in a few cases, only Christ is a pilgrim. It seems possible that a picture by Altobello Melone, painted around 1516 in Cremona - i.e., within the horizon of the Venetian school we're interested in - was one of the most moving examples of the latter configuration (let's add that Melone chose not the moment of the Last Supper but that of Christ's appearance, on the road, to the disciples fleeing from Jerusalem to Emmaus).

In my lecture, I deal specifically with the two works mentioned: Marziale's late version of the Last Supper and Melone's painting in London's National Gallery. I follow the avatars of the iconography of the Venetian school of painting and try to explore the significance of the different paths taken to represent the events of Emmaus: the contemplative path, for example, in Titian's work; the dynamic, unsettling path in Tintoretto's; the unexpected manifestations of the reality of the resurrection in the feast of the patricians shown in Veronese's art, or in the ordinary life of the common people shown in Jacopo Bassano's painting. Above all, however, I would like to present my research in the field of ^{seventeenth-century} Nordic painting. There is a historical basis for this leap in space and time, based on at least two events: 1) the circulation of engravings of Venetian paintings of the Emmaus subject north of the Alps, which was very intense from 1570-1580 and throughout the Seicento ; 2) the direct study of the sources by artists from the Netherlands who, like Rubens or Pieter Lastman, spent a long time in Italy and particularly in Venice.

The Dutch masters, who trained in Rome between 1610 and 1630 under the influence of the Caravaggesques, returned to Holland and developed a rendering of the Last Supper centered on the phenomenon of the light source, visible in the frame of the painting. The candle illuminates and highlights the disciples' expressions of astonishment and the unveiling that allows us to recognize the person of Christ. Be that as it may, the subject of Emmaus was given particular prominence in ^17th- and ^18th-century European painting, in connection with the circulation of engravings and drawings copied or inspired by Rembrandt's depictions of the Saint Luke episode between 1625 and 1660. Among Van Rijn's paintings on this theme, the one in the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, executed in 1628-1630, is of particular interest to me, as Rembrandt's experimentation with chiaroscuro reaches a radicality rarely seen before, and even later into the ^18th century. While one of the disciples falls to his knees, virtually devoured by shadow, Christ and the maid in the background are themselves bodies seen from the shadow side. The majestic profile of Jesus moving away from the table, cut by the intense light of a candle and surrounded by an aura that tangentially illuminates the host's hands in the act of breaking bread, refers to the man from the darkness whose presence is now the testimony of his own victory over death. Following in the footsteps of the Raphael of the Liberation of St. Peter fresco, Rembrandt went a step further, converting the risen man into a silhouette. From then on, the motif of the silhouette was transformed into a visual sign of the returning dead. Extensive research carried out this year at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin has enabled me to trace the course of the silhouette and its multiplication as a privileged form of representation of the massacre and death of thousands of men during the genocides of the ^20th century.