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While wondering through Het Rembrandthuis Museum, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands last autumn, a painting caught my eye.  The walls of the Rembrandt House were covered with paintings salon style, and although it was hard for the eye to isolate any image, this particular painting caught my attention and held it.  The painting, The Last Supper, by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1664) , was on loan to The Rembrandt House Museum from the Rijksmuseum.  The painting resembles Rembrandt’s style because the artist was not only a pupil but also a friend of Rembrandt.  Another interesting thing about the painting was the  way that the artist reinterpreted the subject matter.
The tone of  “The Last Supper” is very intimate.  This is a common subject matter for classical artists, and Eeckhout paints it in an intimate manner that may have been influenced by Rembrandt’s The Supper at Emmaus (1648).  The setting is similar.  Both images have an intimacy to them.  The lighting that shuts the edges of the canvas out of the scene creates this intimacy.  Also, in each painting, there are people in the painting that have their back to the viewer.  This closes the group in the painting and makes us who are viewing the scene feel like we are outsiders.  I have always imagined that the last supper would have been an intimate gathering and not a staged scene where all members are following stage rules and not allowing their backs to be toward the audience.

The Last Supper, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout

The Supper at Emmaus, Rembrandt Van Rijn