Weekday Musings: The Circle of Truth — From Date to Rembrandt

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How a perfect circle drew me toward the dignity of imperfection.


Self-Portrait with Two Circles - Rembrandt (circa 1665)

I wonder how many of you remember Date, our Art teacher in school? I have a distinct memory — perhaps the only one — where someone from our class asked him to draw a circle, and he drew it perfectly in a single motion. That moment is still etched in my mind, because I had never seen such effortless precision. I think he drew a perfect horizontal line as well, with the same casual mastery.

It is interesting to note that way back in the 14th century, in a famous anecdote, the Italian master Giotto was summoned by the Pope to demonstrate his artistry, and he responded by drawing a perfect circle in a single stroke. A similar story involves Apelles, court painter to Alexander the Great, and the artist Protogenes, each competing through “perfect” freehand lines. Such feats became symbols of artistic genius in those times.

Well, we neither had a Pope nor an Alexander the Great in our class, but whoever “challenged” Date that day, he obliged with the same calm ease, drawing that freehand circle and line.

This background came back to me when I recently came across a painting titled Self-Portrait with Two Circles (circa 1665) by Rembrandt. The title itself caught my attention, and when I saw the painting, it intrigued me: why should an artist place two arcs — two incomplete circles — behind a self-portrait? They have fascinated art historians for centuries, because Rembrandt never explained them, and because, as you will see, they look completely out of place.

The circles do not add decorative value, so they must have some symbolic weight — artistic, philosophical, perhaps even spiritual.

If you notice closely, the circles are not perfect. They have been rendered deliberately irregular, as if he is saying: “I have mastered the craft, but I do not seek perfection. I seek truth.” He wasn’t aiming for geometric precision; the circles stand for something larger — the idea of completeness, not its mathematical execution. He rejected fashionable smoothness and elegant idealism, choosing instead a rough honesty.

This painting belongs to his later years — after bankruptcy, the decline of his reputation, and personal grief. He had nothing left to impress except the truth of himself. The two circles can be seen as the silent halo of that truth — not divine, but human.

One defining aspect of Rembrandt’s work is that he turned ageing, failure, and vulnerability into forms of dignity. His art became a lifelong search for the dignity hidden inside imperfection — a journey illuminated not by brightness, but by depth.

Coming back to Date — his circles and lines were perfect, as any art teacher’s would be. But Rembrandt was a Master. He took the liberty of drawing those vast, faint, imperfect circles and placing himself against them, as if saying:

“This is the circle of my world, my craft, my quest.
I stand inside it, illuminated and shadowed.
The idea of the circle is perfect; I am not.
And that is where honesty lives.”

You may also want to read my piece on:  Weekend Story – Leonardo da Vinci’s "Vitruvian Man" (c. 1490)

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