The Anatomy Lesson

by Nina Siegal

  Ah, Tulp, yes. Descartes has frequently been assured that he has much in common with the town praelector, a comparison he finds to be more than a little irksome. For he is a great mathematician, destined, he is sure, to transform scientia, and the praelector is a mere city doctor, dabbling in autopsies.

  It is at this moment that Descartes realizes he has caused himself some trouble by leaving his lodging at the Oud Prins today. The city’s chief praelector, that selfsame Tulp, had in fact invited him to the annual anatomy lesson and he had declined, saying he had planned to spend the week in Deventer with his friend and fellow researcher Henri Reneri. Now he had been spotted by Visscher, though, who no doubt would mention the encounter in passing to his cousin Roemer, who was sure to mention it to Tulpius, his own doctor and dear friend. Word traveled too quickly in these elite city circles.

  “I have heard a great deal of praise for your praelector, though we have not yet had the opportunity to meet,” Descartes answers. “I declined the invitation because I thought I should be out of town this week. Of course, I would not pass up such an important opportunity otherwise. Alas, I have already missed my chance.”

  “Don’t be silly. I will arrange a seat for you,” announces Visscher, “right in the front ring with the nobility. My cousin will be very glad to see you again, as well, I’m sure. And I suspect you and the great Tulpius will have quite a bit in common.”

  “I understand he sets about to debunk William Harvey’s blood circulation theory,” Descartes continues pleasantly, though he wishes Visscher might’ve curbed his generosity just this once. “One finds it hard to envision the way he imagines the heart to pump, but these are indeed very important discoveries he is making across the Channel. His logic is a bit Aristotelian for my tastes, but we must credit him.”

  “You would know better than I,” Visscher says, as if it made no difference to him one way or another. “I say, it’s good that you’re in town. An educated man should not be keeping company with goats and country women for too long.” He winks, clapping Descartes on the back once again, this time so hard it almost makes Descartes lose his balance.

  “It is not idle time,” Descartes defends himself, though he has no need to. “I’m working on a response to Golius at the moment, which might interest you, as it concerns his observations on refraction.”

  “Indeed, I should like very much to read it,” says Visscher. “Though when will I have time? I spend all my daylight hours hiring new shipping men and managers. Who could have guessed a few years ago that we would grow so quickly? Everyone in the world, it seems, now needs to own a map.”

  Descartes considers how he will change his plans to get to the anatomy tonight. He had intended to spend the day in his quarters writing and dissecting his carcass. Now he will not have sufficient time to do both.

  As if on cue, the butcher returns with the dead lamb slung across his arms. He lays it down at Descartes’s feet.

  “Do you plan to sup before the grand feast?” Visscher wonders aloud.

  Descartes’s answer—reminding the cartographer of his amateur anatomy—is drowned out by an eruption of shouting voices at a nearby meat stall. A boy guiding a drove of sheep shoves past the men, cursing them for blocking the way. Visscher shakes his head in disapproval.

  “These men are too much like the beasts they handle,” he declares. “I have no business here; I must not tarry. Do not worry about your ticket to the anatomy. I will get it for you and meet you there. We will count on you tonight, then.”

  “Yes, I appreciate that,” Descartes answers. “Yes, of course, until tonight.” He bows low before the Dutchman, who is already making his way down the lane.

  THE EYES

  Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn is meanwhile in the studio in his painting academy on the Sint Antoniesbreestraat, examining a bolt of linen he bought this morning from a sailcloth merchant by the wharves. He is impressed; it is a strong, smooth, fine weave, though he will need to cut it down to the size of canvas he intends to paint. It’s a vast amount of fabric for a single painting—a much larger piece than he’s ever used before—and it was a huge disbursement.

  Usually, he’d have bought two strips of ticking and joined them together using a slightly thicker ground, and saved those guilders, but he doesn’t want any faint lines to mar the continuity of this particular work. It is the biggest commission he’s received since he’s been in Amsterdam, some six months already, and he can’t afford to let the little things destroy its promise.

  The bells are ringing in the Zuiderkerk, just across the Oude Schans. It’s a reminder that the liefhebbers will be arriving at any moment for their weekly studio visit with the master. This is yet another one of the tedious requirements of his new station as the master of Uylenburgh’s academy. He must appear to be pleased and courteous when these moneyed art lovers come to traipse around his studio; he must kiss their gloves and smile and bow, in hopes that someday they might deign to buy a painting.

  It’s infuriating to the painter. He took this position in Uylenburgh’s academy, thinking he’d sell better in this art-loving city than in his mill town of Leiden. As it turned out, joining Uylenburgh’s studio wasn’t exactly an appointment. He had to “lend” his dealer a thousand guilders to become an “investor” in the business.

  He recently learned, too, that he wasn’t technically allowed to work as a master in Amsterdam, because of city regulations that prohibited outsiders from joining the Sint Lucas Guild, the artists’ guild. To keep a painting practice in the city, he had to work for a studio for a minimum of two years. In this sense, he is indentured to Uylenburgh for the time being until he can get his own membership in the guild.

  In the meantime, Uylenburgh is taking 50 percent of every commission fee in exchange for “studio overhead, guild membership, room and board, and connections.” And he still needs to pay for materials out of his own purse? Rembrandt feels queasy thinking about how much money he’s laid out for all these supplies, between the sailcloth and the minerals.

  At least some of the money from the group portrait should start to roll in later this week. Four members of the guild have already posed for their portraits, Tulp and two more are scheduled for sittings, and an apprentice, Jacob Colevelt, has been in negotiations with Uylenburgh about joining the group. At a hundred guilders a head for the ordinary members plus one hundred fifty from the central figure, Dr. Tulp, he calculates to himself, he’s due at least eight hundred fifty guilders, or maybe nine hundred fifty if Colevelt joins in.

  “Tomas, come help me lift this bolt,” he instructs one of his apprentices, who is preparing the ground for the painting, using a recipe from Italy, with a great deal of red ocher, that called for rabbit skin glue. The rabbit was slaughtered at dawn and the fat extracted from its skin. The rabbit itself is now in the cook’s hands for tonight’s stew.

  The apprentice wipes his knife on his smock and follows his master’s instructions. “On the count of three,” says Rembrandt. “One, two—now, let’s bring it toward the easel—three.”

  They heft the long bolt, which in truth isn’t heavy as much as it is unwieldy, and carry it to the center of the room, laying it on the floor between two easels Tomas has been using to make a study of one of Rembrandt’s paintings. The original is on one easel. Tomas’s copy is on the second.

  Once he lets go of the bolt, Rembrandt straightens and takes a moment to observe his pupil’s work. The subject is Christ’s supper at Emmaus. It depicts the moment when the resurrected Jesus, who has traveled a long way with his disciples, incognito, reveals himself over a meal at an inn. Rembrandt isn’t satisfied with his own painting, which shows the disciples in light and Christ in shadow, and he feels that this contrast seems too forced. But what can he do? Earlier work is earlier work. He can return to the subject later, improve on it as best he can.

  Tomas, anyway, is progressing, it seems. There is a good sense of volume to the space in the inn; the two disciples and Christ are clearly for
e-grounded and the apprentice has managed to create enough perspective in this cramped space so that the servant appears to be well in the background, disengaged from the action.

  “You’ve come a long way in the last few days,” he tells the youth, who he sees has turned slightly wan since his master stopped to observe his work. “You’ve done a particularly good job of rendering Cleopas’s facial features.” Indeed, the surprise on the disciple’s face is palpable as he realizes that the man he took for a vagabond has risen from the dead three days after his crucifixion.

  “You’re still having trouble with the chiaroscuro,” Rembrandt goes on. “This kneeling disciple is too light, if Christ is to be so profoundly silhouetted. You must think of all the characters in relation to the source of light and how and where it illuminates their features.”

  “Yes, master. It was my intention to get his features correct first, and then work in the shadowing.”

  Rembrandt thinks the apprentice is just defending himself and does not grasp that this is an important bit of guidance. “It’s not simply a matter of technique, it’s a matter of narrative,” he elaborates. “Remember that the disciples have been walking with Jesus in the dark for hours before they came upon this village and sat down to eat. It is only when the innkeeper lights the lamp that their revelation comes. The light is central. The light and the surrounding darkness.”

  This time Tomas doesn’t chance it. “Yes, I do see what you’re saying. I will work on that, sir. I have quite a way to go with it yet.”

  “Do not be frustrated if you don’t get it right away,” Rembrandt says, putting a comforting hand on the apprentice’s shoulder and remembering, for a quick instant, what it was like to be in this boy’s shoes some dozen years ago. “It takes a while. Keep working on it.” He takes a few steps back. “Very well; we’ll need to move these two works off the easels to have enough room for the new painting’s stretcher. We’ll put your painting in the ancillary chamber so you can continue there. Think only about the source of light. That will create all the drama you need.”

  His other apprentice, Joris, is standing at the pigment table in the corner, surrounded by ceramic bowls and glass cups containing his ordered minerals: Kassel earth, umber, red lake, vermilion, yellow ocher, red ocher, plus the lead for white and a particularly large quantity of bone char for the black. Some of the minerals have been precrushed and the apprentice just needs to mix the linseed oil into them, using a stone muller and palette knife. Others must be ground to a fine dust before they can be mixed with the binding medium.

  He takes a few steps forward and looks at his own version of the supper at Emmaus. He went too far with the contrast, he thinks again. One can’t see Christ’s face; it’s only Cleopas’s reaction that can be seen clearly and that reaction is pure fear. That’s how he had read the story in Luke when he was younger—imagining primarily the shock and terror of facing a man revived from the grave. A few years older now, he thinks perhaps he miscalculated Cleopas’s reaction. He might have been just as awed as he was fearful; he might, at least, have looked more convinced of divinity.

  Rembrandt lifts his own Emmaus from the easel and carries it into the room where Tomas has taken the copy. There, on a divan, is a completely nude woman leaning on a pile of pillows. Her hair is drawn back loosely around her head, and a few flowers have been woven into her messy curls. A sheet covers her ankles, and that is all.

  She barely notices the intrusion, as she’s busy biting her lips to bring out more red. “Your new boy is too nervous,” she tells Rembrandt blithely, barely glancing across the room at the apprentice holding the sketch pad and charcoal. “His hands are shaking so much he won’t be able to draw a straight line.”

  Rembrandt leans his painting against a wall and crosses to her, seating himself next to her on the divan. He inches his fingers up her thigh and then grabs a fistful of her flesh.

  “Well, luckily, there are no straight lines to draw here.” She squirms but doesn’t pull away. “Curves all.”

  She giggles and falls onto her back. He kisses her breasts in full view of his pupils. Then he sits up and surveys her body. “Your skin is too olive. Let’s get some powder. I want a pale Danaë. Very pale and virginal.”

  “Though we know I am neither.”

  “We are working in allegory, my dear.”

  There is a knock at the door. “Enter!” Rembrandt calls, sitting up.

  His maid, Femke, calls from behind the door, “Master, the liefhebbers have arrived.”

  “Thank you, Femke,” he says without turning to look.

  Femke clears her throat. “Also, master, young Isaac would like me to relay to you that he will continue with the etching plates, but he requests permission to join you in the studio now, if it is not too early. And also, sire, the surgeon Nicolaes Tulp will arrive in an hour for his sitting. His wife sent a note requesting you return him to her promptly after he is done. By then the town center will be mobbed for Justice Day.”

  Rembrandt turns to see the terrified expression on his servant’s face as she enters the room and curtsies to him. She is accustomed to his women by now, but still she blushes.

  “I have been expecting the liefhebbers since the hour mark, so perhaps they can wait for me a moment,” he answers not unkindly. He stands, brushes off his shirtsleeves, and moves away from the model, to ease Femke’s discomfort. “I will not detain Tulp; please send word to assure his wife. Tell Isaac he’s free to come upstairs after he has checked the etching press, but I believe we’re low on wax. The visiting artists arrive in the next hour, do they not?”

  “Yes, Master Rembrandt,” she says. “They will want a tour of the studio.”

  “Please ask Sabine to lay out suitable attire for me. And explain to them that we use real models for our mythical figures so they are not shocked by our model here.”

  Her mouth turns up into the hint of a smile. “Can I bring you some beer, master?”

  “Yes, Femke, my tankard has gone empty. Send the liefhebbers in after that is done.”

  Femke curtsies again but she doesn’t leave, though her gaze fixes on the floor. “I’m sorry to prolong my disturbance, master,” she adds.

  “Yes? What else is there?”

  “A note has come for you from that scurrilous wharf rat they call Fetchet.”

  Rembrandt laughs. “Femke, what has he done to you?”

  “Nothing, master. It’s just what I hear about him from the other girls.”

  “He’s a curio dealer, Femke, which means he’s required to be a scurrilous wharf rat. How else would he manage to scavenge those exotic oddities I seek?” He holds out a hand so that she will bring him the note.

  Femke takes a few steps forward and holds a piece of paper out to him as if holding a dead mouse by its tail.

  He laughs, accepting it. “Now I’m amply intrigued.”

  Rembrandt passes out of the room and back into his main studio. He reads what it says, then uses a piece of charcoal to write a response on the back of the note, and hands it back to Femke. “I’ve agreed to welcome him before noon. Let him up when he arrives.”

  First, to make himself presentable. He is still in his painter’s shirt and black wool breeches, sans doublet or jerkin. Perhaps he should put on something more befitting of this elegant audience. On the floor to one side of the studio lie several items of clothing he’s borrowed from Uylenburgh to pose for a new self-portrait: a black cape, a fur-lined cloak, a pair of long black riding gloves, a soldier’s pewter gorget, and a bright red embroidered cloak. All of them look like costumes rather than clothes: too pompous and absurd.

  He finds a hand mirror on the side table and inspects his face. He tilts the mirror to try and catch some small amount of light from the dour sky. His face seems pinched, his nose too bulbous, his lips too pursed, his brow already wrinkling at twenty-six. The dark curls of hair on his chest sprout about the untied neckline and his chin could use a shave. His hair is not kempt either. Boundless, red, cu
rly, it’s always a thicket through which no comb dares venture. He places a small amount of etching wax into his palms and presses his hands against his hair, attempting to give it shape. Perhaps a cap would help keep his hair in place, he thinks.

  He uses the remaining wax to pat down the stray whiskers on his chin. Wild as his hair on his head can be, what emerges from his chin is stubborn, unyielding, and patchy as a mangy dog’s. He always tries to trim off what comes in except for a thin shelf of hair under his bottom lip and the red fuzz that manages to find fertile soil over his top lip. He finds a white scarf and wraps it around his neck, adding what he hopes will be a touch of formality to his attire—since no ruff is to hand.

  One last glance in the looking glass before someone catches him in the act: let us try not to be too vain.

  THE BODY

  Joep and Aris sit in silence, unable to ignore the sound of the crowd assembling outside in the square. The sound builds and builds until they either have to put their hands over their ears or else talk to each other.

  “I guess they’ll be jeering at us?” says his cell mate, Joep the tailor.

  Aris looks up from the floor to see if his cell mate is asking a question or making a joke. For the first time since they’ve been together in the cell, it occurs to Aris how frail and small his cell mate seems, and how his shoulders curve inward as if to armor his chest. Or maybe all those years of sewing have bent him this way.

  The tailor adds plaintively, “It’s unnecessary, don’t you think? We’re already damned.”

  “You’ve never been to a hanging?” Aris asks.

  The tailor shakes his head, frowning, as if the suggestion is absurd. “I would find such a thing very unsavory.”

  Aris laughs.

  “What?” asks Joep. “What’s funny?”

  Seeing the truly earnest expression on the tailor’s face, Aris laughs even harder. “So, today’s your first hanging and it’s your own. You have to admit it’s a little bit funny.”