Moses with the tablets of the law

When Moses descended from Mount Sinai to give the Israelites the tablets of the law that he had received from God, he found them dancing around the Golden Calf: “It happened, as soon as he came near to the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing: and Moses’ anger grew hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mountain” (Ex. Moses 32:19). When the Israelites had been punished for their idolatry and repented, the Lord spoke to Moses: “Make two other tablets like the first two; and I will put on them the words which were on the first stones, which were broken by you” (Ex. Moses 34:1).For this late work on Moses, Rembrandt opted for the pattern of a three-quarter figure, slightly larger than life-size and seen from below, which stands immediately at the front edge of the painting and in this way is lent a particularly expressive presence. This impression is further reinforced by the striking treatment of light. Moses raises the two tablets, on which the Ten Commandments are inscribed in the Hebrew alphabet, high in the air. Framed by his raised arms and the dark stone tablets, his illuminated head marks the centre of the composition.The much-discussed question of whether the painting illustrates the moment when the tablets are destroyed or the presentation of the new tablets cannot conclusively be answered. However, as shown by an initial pictorial scheme that is no longer visible today, the tablets held aloft by Moses were originally placed further back to the left – a posture that clearly suggests that he was smashing them. The correction of this to tablets held straight above Moses’ head, by contrast, is moreindicative of the presentation of the tablets. This interpretation would also correspond to Moses’ facial expression, which seems to reflect concern rather than anger and rage. This reading is further supported by the fact that, according to the narrative, Moses’ face “shone” after he had received the tablets from God for the second time and presented them to the people of Israel. As the word for “to shine” is related in Hebrew to the word for “horns”, the latter meaning was adopted in the Latin Vulgate Bible and passed into the iconographic tradition. Thus, many depictions of Moses with horns have been ascertained from the Middle Ages onwards. Rembrandt took up this aspect of the story in his painting and expressed it in a naturalistic manner by forming Moses’ hair above his forehead to look like horns.The almost monochrome appearance of the work is partly attributable to the severe greying of pigments and the yellowing of the varnish. In fact, the painting was originally much more colourful and more abundant in detail. The colour of the robe, for example, was probably a deep purple. The assumption that the format of the painting was originally much larger must also be contradicted. Aremarkable aspect is the almost entirely error-free reproduction of the Hebrew text on the tablets, evidence of Rembrandt’s extremely exact and careful way of working. Katja Kleinert und Claudia Laurenze-Landsberg | 200 Masterpieces of European Painting - Gemäldegalerie Berlin, 2019