Famous Paintings Reviewed

Art Paintings: “Aristotle with a Bust of Homer”

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One way to think of the evolution of culture in general, and the history of Western civilization in particular, is as a great conversation among the living and the dead. It is hard to imagine a more celebrated or more succinct illustration of this notion than Rembrandt’s Aristotle with a Bust of Homer.

The founder of empirical philosophy, Aristotle is shown here as a living being, richly dressed, his gold chain unambiguously alluding to his world-dominating pupil and patron, Alexander the Great. The aging philosopher rests his hand on a marble bust of the father of Western literature, the blind poet, Homer, who was an archivist of human hopes and immortal deeds, and a personification of the creative spirit. Theirs is a silent, transgenerational dialogue—between life and art, between world and spirit—and thanks to Rembrandt, we, too, in contemplating them all, are drawn inexorably into the conversation.