The Flight into Egypt: a Night Piece
Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) Dutch
Not on view
By the light of Joseph's lantern, the Holy Family journeys through a nighttime landscape (Matthew 2:13-15). In the 1650s Rembrandt created a number of night pieces-dark prints that allowed him to explore the various ways in which single sources of light illuminate otherwise pitch-black scenes. In this earliest experiment in creating dark prints, Rembrandt left ink on the surface of the printing plate, as though he were painting the etched copper plate anew with each impression. As a result, he created impressions of the same print that are unique in their treatment of light and dark. Here, the Virgin atop the mule is bathed in shadow, yet she stands out against an inky black landscape; Joseph steps through a play of shadows created by the brilliance of the lantern, the windows of which are the only spot where Rembrandt allowed the original white of the paper to remain visible.
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