Rembrandt’s Faust etching, dated ca. 1652, appears to represent the infamous scientist reacting to an inexplicable vision. Although any viewer can easily recognize the artist’s skill, one would be hard pressed to find an easy explanation for the print’s meaning.

When an inventory of Clement de Jonghe’s goods was made in 1679 this etching was called not Faust but ‘The Practicing Alchemist.’ Only in the eighteenth century did the print become known as Dr. Faustus, and today scholars still debate the print’s subject.1 Some argue that the man depicted in the scene may be Faustus Socinus (1539-1604), founder of Socinianism, a reformed sect centered in Poland.2 Others, however, believe that this image is of Dr. Faustus, the mythical character based on the historical Georg Faust (d. 1540), a German scholar who supposedly turned to the dark arts of magic in order to further his knowledge of worldly things.3 Stories of Faust’s dealings with the devil began circulating as early as 1548, and a short novel about a character named Johannes Faustus was printed in 1587, chronicling the rumors about the historical Dr. Faust.4 These works were published well before Rembrandt would have created his "practicing alchemist," yet Faust’s fame has never diminished. Our latest and most widely known stories are from Goethe in the late eighteenth century and Thomas Mann’s novel from 1947.

If Rembrandt’s print represents Dr. Faustus then the moment depicted is when the forces of God appeal to Faust to abandon his evil designs and return to a more righteous path. On the other hand, if the print represents Faustus Socinus then the moment depicted might be symbolic of his decision to devote his life to religion. At times both a scholar of literature and law, in middle age he dedicated himself solely to theological studies.5 So does this represent Faustus Socinus being called to the exclusive study of God or Johannes Faustus being offered an opportunity for salvation, which he will ultimately ignore? The ambiguity of subject, however, should not dissuade us from an appreciation of the image.

Faust or Faustus is shown temporarily distracted from his work by the appearance of a heaven-sent disc in the window. We cannot be sure exactly what kind of work he studies, but we can deduce that he is a scholar by his surroundings and his attire. He wears layers of long robes that hang well below his desk and a hat commonly worn by academics in the seventeenth century. The scholar is laying his pen aside as he rises to confront the vision.

Other details confirm the scholar’s status. In the foreground is a globe. Although the sphere mapped is not represented, the longitudinal lines wrapping the globe are clearly distinguishable from the parallel hatch marks that represent shading. In the lower right of the print, just above the globe is a group of horizontally parallel hatch lines, probably a stack of books. A similar pile can be hazily seen on a shelf in the upper left. Stretching across most of the foreground is the scholar’s desk, where papers are spread across a common bookstand. The last major piece of evidence that would lead us to believe this man is a learned one is the presence of a skull on a shelf behind him. This is virtually an omnipresent attribute of scholars in Rembrandt’s time.

Our copy of this etching shows a man probably between the ages of 18 and 25. This is due to the fact that, in general, etched plates need to be reworked frequently, because of their deterioration after each pressing. In its original state the scholar is an old man, appearing wise if only with age. The reworking of this plate probably occurred at the hands of Henry-Louis Basan (d. before 1819), the etching’s larges known reprinter, circa 1807-9.6

Although painted after the Faust etching, Vermeer’s pair of paintings The Astronomer and The Geographer also might help us identify the man in our etching as a scholar of the times. Both are in scholarly robes and work at desks very similar to that of Rembrandt’s figure. There is also the very obvious prominence of globes in all three images. The purposes of Vermeer’s globes are clear: a celestial globe, or a map of the stars, for the astronomer, and a terrestrial globe, or a map of the earth, for the geographer.7 Rembrandt has given us no indication of the type of globe his scholar might have had. Were we to know, perhaps we could have more insight about who this scholar is meant to be. Surely Faustus Socinus, a man who studied God in the heavens would have been familiar with an astrological globe. Whereas Johannes Faustus, being consumed with the desire to know everything of the world and its secrets, would be better represented with a globe of the earth.

The question that remains is what exactly it is that distracts this man from his work. The figure raises himself up, his clenched left hand pressing on the arm of his chair, and stares at what is most likely a divine vision: a circular disc filled with letters and symbols. Directly beside it is what is believed to be a mirror, towards which an unidentified hand and forearm appear to be pointing. The characters on the disc have been interpreted as religious in nature, but their exact meaning remains unknown.8 Like the globe, Rembrandt very carefully leaves even the meaning of this apparition ambiguous.

A possible explanation can be saught in Domenico Campagnola’s woodcut Vision of a Saint, in which a man is rising from his work at a desk while distracted by an apparition appearing in his window.9 The apparition in this print, however, is a full-grown man and is pointing to something off the edge of the image that the viewer cannot see. The compositional makeup of Campagnola’s woodcut and Rembrandt’s Faust are strikingly similar, from the pointing finger of the apparitions, to the obvious parallel between the patterns of the curtains to the left of the windows. Given these similarities, it is likely that Vision of a Saint may have inspired some of the unusual aspects of Rembrandt’s print.

In the end, we are left to wonder what the true meaning of this print might be. Rembrandt did not take advantage of several details he could have used to make this image a portrait of a specific historical figure. We cannot assume this to be Faustus Socinus or Johannes Faustus, but only a scientist or scholar being suddenly distracted from his work by some sort of vision. Although altered by another artist’s hand, it is still a testament to the skill attained by Rembrandt in the craft of etching.

--Carey Carter