Simeão no Templo

Rembrandt was about 22 when he painted this small panel, still living in Leiden, the town where he was born, years before fame and Amsterdam. Already he was doing the thing he would do all his life, pushing most of a scene into shadow and letting a single fall of light pick out what matters. Here it lands on the old man Simeon, who had been promised he would not die until he had seen the awaited child, and who now holds that infant in the temple. Rembrandt gives the moment to age rather than to the baby. The old face, tilted up into the light, carries the whole weight of a long wait finally over.