The Operation (Allegory of Touch)

This is one of the earliest paintings we have by Rembrandt, made around 1624 when he was barely 18 and still working in his home town of Leiden. It belongs to a small series on the five senses, and touch is represented by a scene from the street theatre of the day, a travelling quack cutting into a man's head to remove the so-called stone of madness. Three figures press close together in a shallow dark space, the patient wincing while an old woman looks on. The idea of showing each sense as a dubious medical cure was his own, unlike anything around him. Even this early, the light already picks out a few hands and faces and lets the rest fall away.