The Return Of The Prodigal Son Poem Analysis

Many artists use the passage of time in their artwork. Some use this as a way to tell a story. The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt Vin Rijn shows the passage of time. It shows the passage of time by it’s title, the shading of the colors, and the texture of the clothing the kneeling boy is wearing, but most importantly, the content of the story. This piece of art is a narrative. A narrative artwork in which even though it may appear that it’s a “photographic” frozen moment, time is implied from a larger sequence of events. The image is understood as a part of a larger narrative sequence. The painting implies that the son did wrong. For example, this piece captures the moment in the story when the Prodigal Son comes back home and is …show more content…
The title is “The Return Of the Prodigal Son”. The word return shows the passage of time. The definition of return is come or go back to a place or person. From this we know that just from the title that the son left to go somewhere and came back. From the content of the story we understand that the son went out and spent all of his inheritance and is at the lowest point of his life. Another property that supports the passage of time is, how Rembrandt applies texture to the sons clothes. If you look at the son hugging his father there are two shoes. One shoe is just a piece of one and its beside his left foot. The other one is on his right foot and is severely worn. Also if you look at the clothes he is wearing compared to what the people around him are wearing he is wearing rags. This shows the passage of time because the son left home with nice clothes and pockets full of money. This shows that he returns home after being broken for so long. He now has nothing and is begging for …show more content…
If you look at all the other people in the painting, excluding the son, you will notice that everyone’s face is clean and a pasty white color. Now look at the sons face when you see his face Rijin has carefully blended his face with the brown shirt of the father and leaves just enough clean so you know its a face. By doing this he implies his face is dirty and just like the rest of the son is dirty either spiritually or literally depending on how you actually look at the painting. By implying dirt it shows the son went and did something outside this moment that is captured in the painting and gotten himself dirty. By understanding the content we know that the son squandered all of his money and this painting is the moment when he comes home and begs his father for forgiveness and to be a servant. All of these properties of this painting show how the passage is applied to this artwork. The title, the shading of its colors, and the texture of the sons clothings all blend together cohesively to make this happen. But most importantly the content of the story itself. This defines what a true narrative painting is. This painting was able to capture a moment in a story and apply the passage of time to tell it with one moment