Rembrandt depicted several scenes from the parable, especially the final episode, which he etched, drew, or painted on several occasions during his career. Albrecht Dürer made a famous engraving of the Prodigal Son amongst the pigs (1496), a popular subject in the Northern Renaissance. The Parable of the Return of the Prodigal SOn in Paintingįrom the Renaissance the numbers shown widened slightly, and the various scenes – the high living, herding the pigs, and the return – of the Prodigal Son became the clear favorite. The whole represents a symbol of all homecoming, of the darkness of human existence illuminated by tenderness, of weary and sinful mankind taking refuge in the shelter of God's mercy.

The father's features tell of a goodness sublime and august so do his outstretched hands, not free from the stiffness of old age. Unforgettable is the image of the repentant sinner leaning against his father's breast and the old father bending over his son. The occurrence is devoid of any momentary violent emotion, but is raised to a solemn calm that lends to the figures some of the qualities of statues and gives the emotions of a lasting character, no longer subject to the changes of time. His old father, dressed in rich garments, as are the assistant figures, has hurried to meet him before the door and receives the long-lost son with the utmost fatherly love. He has wasted his heritage in foreign lands and has sunk to the condition of a swineherd. The son, ruined and repellent, with his bald head and the appearance of an outcast, returns to his father's house after long wanderings and many vicissitudes. The observer is roused to a feeling of some extraordinary event. Particularly vivid are the ragged garment of the son, and the old man's sleeves, which are ochre tinged with golden olive the ochre colour combined with an intense scarlet red in the father's cloak forms an unforgettable colouristic harmony. The main group of the father and the Prodigal Son stands out in light against an enormous dark surface. Expressive lighting and colouring and the magic suggestiveness of his technique, together with a selective simplicity of setting, help us to feel the full impact of the event. The aged artist's power of realism is not diminished, but increased by psychological insight and spiritual awareness. It goes beyond the works of all other Baroque artists in the evocation of religious mood and human sympathy. Here he interprets the Christian idea of mercy with an extraordinary solemnity, as though this were his spiritual testament to the world. Rembrandt's final word is given in his monumental painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son.

Koontz prodigal son