Emmaus

Rembrandt takes out all the noise. Christ sits in front of a tall niche and breaks the bread, a faint glow about his head. The boy who brings the dish notices nothing.

As a young man, about 1628, Rembrandt had painted the scene as a violent effect: Christ a black silhouette against a blaze of light. Twenty years later he does the opposite. The architecture is far too large for an inn; the niche behind Christ turns the table into an altar.