CHAPTER 03 / 20
Jesus: parables, words and encounters
Healing, return and transformed perception connect Gospel narratives with their painted interpretations.
First century · Jesus’ ministry
Return of the Prodigal Son
Rembrandt
c. 1668 · painting date
01
A history told in different voices
The Gospels present Jesus through encounters, disputes, teachings and healing narratives. They are not four identical reports. Their composition, audiences and ways of connecting episodes contribute to Christianity’s diversity. Historians distinguish investigation of the historical Jesus from the full theological claims made by communities.
Parables offer stories to interpret rather than portraits of identifiable people. The prodigal son belongs to a narrative told in Luke, not to an event whose participants’ appearances are known. Rembrandt can therefore give the story human intensity without claiming to reconstruct something witnessed.
Return of the Prodigal Son
Rembrandt
c. 1668 · painting date
Hermitage Museum
Christ Healing the Blind
El Greco
1570–1575 · painting date
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
02
Each painter chooses a centre
In the Return of the Prodigal Son, the closeness of father and son makes return an experience of touch and silence. El Greco’s and Murillo’s healing scenes direct attention differently: towards the meeting of bodies, a gesture or a waiting figure.
Raphael’s Transfiguration connects contrasting registers within a large composition. Light and groups of figures confront the viewer with a carefully constructed image, its effects inseparable from the painter’s craft. Understanding that construction requires neither religious belief nor reducing faith to technique.
Christ healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
1668 · painting date
National Gallery
Transfiguration
Raphael
1516–1520 · painting date
Pinacoteca Vaticana
03
Read with traditions, not as one uniform tradition
Gospel reading, preaching and charitable action are central to many Christian communities. Their emphases differ: liturgy, sacramental life, personal conversion, biblical study or collective commitments. No painting alone summarises these practices.
Healing may acquire a spiritual meaning in a painting’s reception. It is not a medical promise to the visitor. These works help us understand how narratives were transmitted and made visible; interpretation remains open to comparison between sources and traditions.
RESEARCH & FURTHER READING
Sources for this chapter
Museum links accompanying the paintings lead to institutional collection information. Display, loans and access can change; consult the museum before visiting.