“I had no previous experience, none,” Jake Heffner, a junior in mechanical engineering, said.

Along with Micaela Smoot, a sophomore in business management, and Will Davis, a senior in mathematics, Heffner roamed the new North Carolina Museum of Art exhibit — Sordid and Sacred: Beggars in Rembrandt’s Etchings, which are selections from the John Villarino Collection.

The average student with the isn’t generally on the same page as the sometimes pretentious world of “high” art. The students interviewed said they don’t have any previous experience in Renaissance Art, and Rembrandt might as well be a tube of toothpaste.

“I took Asian art at [the University of] Chapel Hill, and that is absolutely it,” Smoot said about her experience with art. “We did learn a lot about art there, but it was all about Asian art. So it was a lot different, a lot of monuments and stuff.”

“My knowledge [of art] is based solely on the Durham County Public Schools,” Davis said.

Rembrandt’s copper etchings combine rough cross hatchings, squiggles and lines forming hunched-over bodies of the desolate poor who lined the Dutch streets where Rembrandt lived.

The Museum released the following quote about the exhibit: “Rembrandt renders his beggars with the same feeling for humanity that he brought to his portraits and narrative subjects,” said Dennis P. Weller, Ph. D., chief curator and curator of northern European art. “In his hands, beggars are not contemptible or loathsome creatures, but rather individuals who demand a certain degree of respect.”

The experts think these works have punch, full of significant meaning in a tiny printed package. But what about everybody else — is this exhibit worth the $4 in gas it takes to drive out there?

The opinions are split. Davis and Heffner said they enjoyed the exhibit, while Smoot found it “so depressing.”

“It was all just so sad,” Smoot said. “In some of the pictures one face would be so detailed and sad, and then in the background they were a lot more vague, but still really sad.”

Melancholy exudes from the prints, carried through the pupils and to the soul by electric lights. Rembrandt’s obvious pity for the poor man’s plight can easily be understood by viewers.

“Most of the time, when it was the non-beggars looking at the beggars, it looked like pity,” Davis said. “In contrast with The Rat Catcher, which is just like, ‘never mind.'”

The viewers said they hated The Rat Catcher, a print depicting a poor man trying to sell a dead rat to a wealthy man.

“[The Rat Catcher] pissed me off because the guy is just like, ‘I caught this rat,’ and the dude is like, ‘go away,'” Davis said. “I am wholly dissatisfied with this picture.”

Despite the controversy caused by the rat etching, the students said they disagreed more with the Museum’s press statement that, “Much of Rembrandt’s work displays a crossover between various genres and his etchings of beggars are no exception.”

Since the students remain unfamiliar with the rest of Rembrandt’s work they said they cannot speak for it, but as for the etchings, none of them recognized significant variance.

“The beggars banging on the door of the house, I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be religious,” Smoot said. “But the guy was wearing a thing on his head and so it kind of made it look like it. A lot of it just seemed about poverty and desperation.”

Heffner said he noticed some religious imagery.

“The only one I saw that really had any religious diversity was the The Flight into Egypt: Crossing a Brook,” Heffner said. “But I mostly just saw the poorness.”

Davis said he didn’t recognize what the etching was about.

“Personally, I didn’t notice that it was supposed to be Joseph and Mary.” Davis said. “I thought it was supposed to be Jewish people passing into Egypt — which in retrospect makes no sense. I just thought they were beggars, and so of course they are going to be sad.”

Art often provokes confusion and debate, and the Rembrandt etchings are no exception. Personal opinions, beliefs and visions all contribute to weaving a mind around a work of art. What somebody sees and feels is inextricably tied to his own turmoil.

“I like a little bit of interpretive art,” Heffner said. “Not like hippy interpretive art, but a little bit is good.”

And that is exactly what the Rembrandt exhibit offers, a chance to interpret the mind of a Renaissance genius through almost definitive works.