The Remorse of David?

The name of this beautiful painting is The Toilet of Bathsheba. Painted by Rembrandt, it currently hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of an ongoing exhibition entitled In Praise of Painting: Dutch Masterpieces at The Met.

There is much to see in this exhibit, many works to peruse, and I visit it often, particularly since I started working on a novel which features another painting in the exhibition. (The painting in question is surrounded by a bit of an art history mystery I hope to solve, at least in my imagination.) No matter how often I visit though, Bathsheba always grabs me.

Whenever I stand in front of her, just in the spot where I was when I took this photograph, I can’t help but think Bathsheba is not really the subject of the painting. I know, I know, her name is in the title and the central image is Bathsheba, naked and beautiful, gazing out in my general direction. But I can’t help feeling the painting is really about David.

King David is in the painting although it is impossible to see him in my image, and even standing directly in front of the painting he is difficult to discern. The painting has been abraded and much of it, including David, appears to be in shadow. But he is there, on the castle’s parapet, looking at Bathsheba just as I am looking at her. If you know the Bible story (Samuel 2) then you know this painting depicts the first moment in a story that moves from lust to adultery to deception to murder. It is David who moves through these phases, sliding from his parapet down the slippery slope of desire to action. Rembrandt has captured this moment, the allure of Bathsheba as David espies her and makes his decision.

I often wonder how long David gazed on Bathsheba before he decided on sin. The Bible is silent on this issue. Did he mull over what he was thinking of doing? Did he hesitate, worry about the repercussions for himself or for Bathsheba, a married woman? Or did he simply see her and stride toward his lust with nary a thought for the nature of the act he was intent on? We can’t know for sure, but when I look at Rembrandt’s painting, I feel like David is pausing before Bathsheba, just as I am, admiring her beauty, yes, but also thinking over what he wants to do versus what he ought to do. How often are we caught in that moment, suspended like a raindrop on a spider’s web, time standing still for just that brief instant when we must choose right or wrong. To me, Rembrandt’s genius goes beyond the beauty of the image, beyond his masterful use of paint, his design, to capture the invisible tension that must have hung over David in that moment in time, that hangs over the viewer as she gazes at the painting. I think, by capturing that tension, Rembrandt suggests David knew that what he was contemplating was wrong but, as we know from the story, chose to do it anyway, to disastrous consequences for Bathsheba’s husband. We also know that David ultimately, inevitably I would argue, came to lament his actions. I can’t help but subtitle this painting in my head - The Remorse of David.