The Blindness of Tobit: The Large Plate is a 1651 by Rembrandt, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
The painting shows a blind man, Tobit, feeling his way around a room. He's excited to see his son return. The artist used a special method to make the scene more dramatic. The dark ink makes Tobit stand out. His beard is the only bright part, which makes his face look even more upset. Check out the use of chiaroscuro in this work.
Having sent Tobias to collect a debt, a blind Tobit knocks over his wife’s spinning wheel and gropes for the door in his excitement to see his long-absent son. Rembrandt selectively inked and wiped the plate of this beautiful impression to enhance the scene’s meaning. The dark ink left behind the figure accentuates Tobit’s isolation and makes his beard-the only area of the print without any ink-seem even brighter, dramatizing the father’s anguished expression. Tobit’s shadow is cast by the firelight onto the wall to the far left of the doorway, symbolizing how far he has strayed from his goal…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), known mononymously as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and draughtsman.
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