Keris and Rembrandt

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

I did not see that the mailed hand was grasping the blade, I sub-consciously had that hand gripping the hilt.

Makes perfect sense to me Alan. Because your mind wasn't connecting to the fact that the hand is holding the blade in a completely unpractical manner you just weren't seeing it correctly.
Ganja, yes, in many ways this is "Rembrandt's Keris", but it is most certainly modeled after a keris he actually held in his possession. As such it is as much a "real" item that can be identified as is a photograph, that is a 2 dimensional depictions of an actual 3 dimensional object.
Rick, i think perhaps Rembrandt chose to use various exotic arms simply because they were exotic. We might be thinking too deeply if we are searching for a allegory here.

[ThePepperSkull]

Agreed with David. I think it's a case of a cigar just being a cigar. Rembrandt was an enthnographic arms collector and included various ethnographic arms in his paintings.

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by ThePepperSkull

Agreed with David. I think it's a case of a cigar just being a cigar. Rembrandt was an enthnographic arms collector and included various ethnographic arms in his paintings.

edited:

(translation:"this is not a pipe.". this is also not a kris. this isn't a keris either.)

[Gustav]

C'est un kris?

[kronckew]

this is not a keris, it is an image of a keris

p.s. - this is not a kris either. this is an image of a kris.


of course, in classical thaumaturgy the image IS the object, it's the sympathetic magical law of similarity.....

[A. G. Maisey]

Kronckew in your most recent post you have made the most beautiful and most accurate statement I think I have ever seen in this discussion group:-

this is not a keris, it is an image of a keris


I thank you most sincerely for reminding us that when we look at an image on a computer screen, no matter how expertly that image has been prepared, it is still not the real thing, it is only something that acts upon our mind to conjure our own understanding of the real thing.

[kronckew]

a.g., you have most eloquently put into words the intent of my posts. words are also images.

...and sometimes provoke more thought than a graphic ever could. sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures as it allows your imagination to fill in the gaps...

i remember reading 'the talisman' in my youth, and there was, i believe, a chapter where king richard (the lionheart) meets saladin (Salah-ed-Din Yusef ibn Ayub), richard cuts an iron bar in half with his sword to impress him, and saladin responds by cutting a silk scarf in half by just floating it down onto the stationary edge.

how many pictures of that sword are in our minds now....

and the image in oil paint of the essential keris in sampson's eye will also be engraved somewhere in our hearts evermore...