The scene represents the moment when Jesus, after his death and Resurrection, lets his identity be known reveals his identity to the two disciples met on the way to Emmaus, small town close to Jerusalem, whose name means “warm spring” in Semitic language.
We saw it in our previous article, it is by breaking the bread and sharing the wine that Jesus announces his near death and abandonment by his loved one.
Three days later, it is also by the same gestures that he will make known his victory over death.
In the intimacy of a simple meal shared with humble people, Christ reveals also to everyone his inner truth. From the memory of this moment came the word “companion”, “the one with which we share bread”, from the Latin “cum”, “with”, and “pan”, “bread”.
This historical moment in the history of humanity has had such a profound effect on people’s minds that its imprint can be found everywhere, in language, religion, politics, painting, architecture, toponymy, agriculture, viticulture – in short, in all the components of a culture, or even a civilization.
As you can see, what this painting represents is not a scene observed by a spectator. It is the inner experience of the disciple facing an inner truth.
Rembrandt, here, moves from depicting things and people as they appear to be, to depicting what they are internally. What we see is not what happens in the visible world, but an inner experience.
Just as the painting is chromatically separated into light and dark zones, between immobility and dynamics, in the same way, we believe that a good wine, a true wine, a wine of light, a wine rooted in its soil and its history, a wine connected to its environment, near and far, has a soul that can resonate with that of the one who drinks it. Provoking a mixture of surprise and wonder. Maybe also awakening the muted echo of a distant nostalgia. Maybe an enlightenment.
Because what a real wine tells you when it comes to you is, above all, your own story. But to do that, it has to have a voice. And a soul. And then things will unfold from presence to presence.
(Dr. FX)