In this 1635 oil painting, Spanish Baroque painter Jusepe de Ribera introduces us to an imaginary snapshot of a life shaped by wisdom and hardship, that of an ancient Greek philosopher. The subject could be Pythagoras, but he is more likely Euclid, who wrote his famous treatise on “Elements.”
What do we see? Who are we meeting?
Euclid emerges from the shadows. His forehead is crumbled. His eyes marked with wrinkles, signs of a life lived in intensity. He seems worried, but the lips beneath the unkempt beard purse upward into an exhausted but proud faint smile. His hands hold open a notebook for us to see, a manuscript of sorts. Perhaps he has handwritten it, or perhaps it came fresh off the printing press, which would account for his dirty fingernails. Perhaps, however, as the tattered clothes indicate, he is a learned beggar. In this work of art, dirtiness symbolizes devotion to intellectual pursuits. A man of true science, De Ribera tells us, isn’t a polished intellectual noble.
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