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Perhaps no other artist captures the imagination and the heart of a worldwide audience more than Rembrandt van Rijn (July 15, 1606-October 4, 1669). Despite his continuing popularity as the greatest painter of biblical themes and an impressive body of scholarship about his work, Rembrandt's faith has not been recognized and articulated as much as it should be.

Here was a person whose phenomenal optic nerve was connected to the highest intelligence, tenderness of feeling, and complexity of character, yet many key details of his life and beliefs still remain uncertain. A vastly productive artist for over four decades, he left no personal diary. But he lurks in his paintings—not just in his famous self-portraits, but also in some subtle and not-so-subtle self-portraits embedded in other paintings and engraved works. One suspects that Rembrandt's self-portraits were not only a reflection of his identity, but also an attempt to forge his identity.

In the The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming (published in a number of editions since 1992), the late Catholic priest and spiritual writer Henri Nouwen lucidly and lovingly built a bridge from Rembrandt's artwork to a broad audience. Through his sensitive musing on Rembrandt's magnificent painting The Return of the Prodigal Son in relation to his own spiritual journey, Nouwen has captivated many readers who use the book as a spiritual manual and guide. Though it reveals as much about Nouwen as it does Rembrandt or his painting, the book shows the power Rembrandt's biblical interpretation still has in the hearts of contemporary viewers.

Rembrandt's Prodigal Son is a monumental work of art, over eight feet tall and six feet wide. He probably painted it in 1668, the year before he died. This painting, perhaps even more than the self-portraits from his last year, sums up his life. What was that life like?

One of the most renowned, even shocking, embedded self-portraits is his painting The Raising of the Cross (c. 1633). Rembrandt depicts himself wearing an extravagant beret (he subsequently made it the trademark of an artist) in the center of the painting as the main person erecting the cross. One would like to think that this shows an honest and humble Rembrandt who identified himself as one of the guilty ones who put Christ on the cross—and that may be true. But Rembrandt was still young, and this work was painted for a very prestigious patron—the head of state at the time, Frederick Henry of Orange—as part of five scenes from The Passion of Christ. So bold, so memorable! Modesty and pride could be terribly entangled in Rembandt's personality.

Rembrandt completed The Raising of the Cross just prior to his marriage in 1634 to Saskia van Uylenburgh. Saskia was the cousin of a picture dealer with whom Rembrandt became closely associated after he made his final move from his birth city of Leiden to Amsterdam in 1631/32. By every account, Rembrandt's union with Saskia was a joyous one. Amazingly, Saskia seems to have been willing for Rembrandt to depict her perched on his lap as he hoisted a glass in The Prodigal Son in the Tavern (1635), while many contemporary painters (Rubens included) represented their own marital relationships in a garden suggesting Eden. Not without reason did the renowned art historian Kenneth Clark called Rembrandt a "rebel"!

But after several of their children died in infancy, Saskia's health deteriorated rapidly, and she died in 1642—the same year Rembrandt created his most famous painting, the so-called Nightwatch. Her only surviving offspring was their dearly loved son, Titus. Rembrandt later painted Titus's portrait, just as he had continually painted Titus's mother both in dazzling health and dire illness on her deathbed.

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