Christus in de hof van Gethsemane 1618

Nicolaes de Bruyn etched “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane,” a scene laden with symbols of human frailty and divine resolve. Christ is depicted anguished, his arms raised to an angel bearing a chalice, the cup of suffering. Meanwhile, his disciples, Peter, John, and James, succumb to sleep, emblems of humanity's inability to stay awake to spiritual truth. The motif of the sleeping disciple echoes throughout art history, from classical depictions of Endymion lulled into eternal slumber by Selene, to countless other works of exhausted figures in the face of divine mysteries. Sleep here, isn't mere rest, it is a symbolic lapse, a failure to witness the sacred. Consider how this scene resonates with our own moments of spiritual or moral weakness, that resonate on a deep, subconscious level engaging viewers with collective memory, making de Bruyn’s etching not just a religious scene, but a mirror reflecting our shared human condition.