File:Print (BM 1848,0911.95 2).jpg

Height: 48 millimetres

Width: 66 millimetres

Hinterding et al. 2000 Selected literature: Rifkin 1972, p. 124; Amsterdam 1999-2000, p. 136; White 1999, p. 186.

The 'sujets libres' in Rembrandt's print oeuvre include the 'Monk in the cornfield', which shows in miniature a deed as old as humanity. Like the other prints in this group (including 1848,0911.94), the etching is extremely rare, and given the fineness of the lines and the use of drypoint, not many impressions can have been produced. The scene is a cornfield at the height of summer. The crops are so tall that the sexual act can take place unobserved. In the distance a man wields a scythe. Although Rembrandt is known for his sweeping brushstrokes, here he displays an astonishing amount of detail in just a few square centimetres. The figures have been conveyed with immense care. The monk is not supporting himself with flat hands, but has clenched fists, his toes dig into the ground and his sandals come loose from his heels. The woman beneath him is barefoot. She puts her right arm around him encouragingly while her other arm extends slackly on the ground. The tonsured monk wears a hooded habit; his leather or vellum-covered pocket Bible or Prayer Book, removed from its place under his girdle, lies to one side. At left stands a jug that identifies the woman as a milkmaid. Rembrandt often took inspiration from an existing print, and in the case of the 'Monk in the cornfield' this was an engraving by Heinrich Aldegrever, which several other artists also copied [The New Hollstein (German), ‘Heinrich Aldegrever’, 30. Aside from a variant by Aldegrever himself (ibid., 29), there are two copies, one with a text, wrongly reproduced as by Aldegrever in Amsterdam 1999-2000, p. 146]. It shows a monk and a nun being interrupted in their open-air sexual activities by a 'Landsknecht' with a sword. The tone is admonitory, and the devil is ensconced in the tree above them. Aldegrever, an adherent of the Reformation, takes a swipe at the Catholic clergy by highlighting their carnal sins, a hot topic in his day that attracted the righteous indignation of many a pamphleteer [For the interpretation of Aldegrever's engraving, see Janey L. Levy in Lawrence-New Haven-Minneapolis-Los Angeles 1988-9. pp. 186-8]. Rembrandt's interpretation is not entirely free of satire, but it is more good-natured in tone. He seems to be drawing on the medieval tradition that represented monks and priests as extremely potent. Especially in the genre of farce this image recurs again and again, and one of the examples in Jan van Stijevoort's sixteenth-century 'Refereynenbundel' is the poem 'The monk and his temptress'. [For such farces, see Van Altena 1997, based on Noomen & Van den Boogaard 1983-99. The 1524 poem by Van Stijevoort is included in Van Straten 1992, pp.73-5]. One standard episode features a husband away from home and a monk or curate paying a call to keep the man's wife company; the husband then reappears just when matters have taken a particularly friendly turn. Even before 1500, woodcuts were printed showing the furious husband taking revenge on the cleric, and not infrequently on his adulterous wife too, transforming the marital bed into a bloodbath. [Fuchs 1909, p. 12s, fig. 108]. Rembrandt opted for eroticism 'en plein-air' and set the intimate encounter in the countryside, as did other artists who showed their figures enjoying earthly pleasures while reclining on the earth's surface. The very few who dared to go as far as Rembrandt in depicting the subject produced works exhibiting the total lack of artistic quality that is the hallmark of all early pornography. In the sixteenth century in particular, the lovers had generally retired into the corn in the background of a painting of a peasant wedding or 'kermis'. The painting by the Brunswick Monogrammist, which has at its centre a passionate couple who have secluded themselves from the fairground crowds and Albrecht Altdorfer's matchless drawing 'Lovers in the cornfield' are exceptions to the rule [For the painting, see Becker 1994 and Müller 1997; for Altdorfer's drawing, see Hans Mielke in Berlin-Regensburg 1988. no. 28]. It is usually peasants who are depicted giving their lust free rein, and Rembrandt too confirmed the milkmaid's great reputation in the erotic sphere in his surprising 'pas de deux' [Amsterdam 1997. pp. 260-63, no. 52].