Rembrandt: Belshazzar’s Feast

The painting tells a story from the Old Testament. King of Babylon, Belshazzar’s father had robbed the temple of Jerusalem of all its containers that were sacred for the Jewish. Belshazzar used these containers to serve wine at a feast, when suddenly a clap of thunder came as a warning and God’s hand appeared to write a Hebrew text: “You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.’’ After that, Belshazzar died. 

In the painting, one letter is written incorrectly, even though Rembrandt verified the correct spelling from his Hebrew speaking friend. 

The reason we chose this particular painting was that we were interested in finding out what the odd text in the painting meant (Hebrew script). We became more interested about the text since the people were distraught. The dark colour palette, the glowing text and the layout of the painting catched our eyes. When we took a closer look at the painting we were surprised at the record playing person because they were calmly looking straight at the person viewing at the painting unlike all the other people that were looking at the text, shocked. The person’s colour is also quite bland and painted with only one colour.