Throughout his life Rembrandt treated the stories and parables of the Old and New Testaments in accessible, familiar images. Because the Dutch Reformed Calvinism of his time forbade religious art in churches, public commissions for paintings of biblical subjects were virtually nonexistent, but an enthusiastic private patronage for them thrived, which helps account for the preponderance of religious subjects in Rembrandt's work.
The Raising of Lazarus is Rembrandt's only painting of this miracle marking the culmination of Christ's ministry, but he also made drawings and etchings of the same subject. Christ's divine and human nature is revealed as he stands in the cave where Lazarus was buried, his hand raised to perform the miracle, his face filled with apprehension and triumph. Rembrandt interprets Lazarus's rising not only in direct correspondence with Christ's forceful gesture but also in response to the divine power it has unleashed by evoking faith.
Around Christ and the tomb huddle the astounded witnesses—among them Mary and Martha, Lazarus's sisters—whose gestures and expressions record successive states of awareness and awe before what is unfolding. The dramatic darkness of the cave does not obscure the subtle colors--mauve, rose, and aqua--of the costumes or the glinting highlights of the quiver and scabbard hanging at the right.
