First sighting of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp

And there I was, the pilgrimage complete. Standing with two thumbs aloft in front of Rembrandt’s ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’. Nine men, but eight living, peering over a plinth supporting a yellowed, decaying corpse. The left forearm is sliced open revealing the interior. The muscles are pulled upward by Tulp, his instrument a thin pair of pincers.

I think of my upward thumbs and what muscles in my forearm are allowing this gesture of friendly goodwill and affirmation to occur. The same muscles perhaps that Tulp is pinching. In a moment in my mind I become this rigid corpse, occupying him, phantom-like.

I am lying there, the diaphanous cloth covering my nether lands, the men above me are a mash of curiosity, their furrowed brows are mountainous, their focus as tight as the ruffs done up just under their lobes, the lace tickling their necks throughout this morbid pantomime. The audience up high in the nose bleeds shift with the incisions, filling the silence in the creaking theatre.

Over the plinth, one stares out to the void, raising his chin outward. His thumb tightly squeezes his sheet. If he is not careful he will smudge the viscous ink, transforming his writings into fading continents of blotted blue.