Maaltijd te Emmaüs 1655 - 1700

This is Jan van Somer’s ‘Maaltijd te Emmaüs’, a print illustrating the biblical story of the Meal at Emmaus. The gestures of the figures around the table are particularly evocative. Christ’s blessing of the bread, a familiar scene, carries the weight of centuries of religious and artistic tradition. Consider the raised hand of one disciple. This gesture echoes across time, appearing in ancient Roman art as a symbol of authority and in Renaissance paintings as a sign of astonishment or divine revelation. Its recurrence speaks to a collective memory, a shared visual language that transcends epochs. The act of breaking bread, repeated countless times in art history, is not merely a depiction of a meal. It is a potent symbol of communion, sacrifice, and recognition. This scene taps into deep-seated psychological currents. It reminds us of the human desire for connection and the symbolic power of shared rituals. The symbols in this image reveal how such visual motifs evolve. They are continuously reinterpreted, yet always tethered to their origins. This endless cycle of adaptation speaks to the enduring power of images to capture and convey fundamental human experiences.