Lives Of Rembrandt

The prodigious talent of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (ca. 1606–1669), along with his disregard for many of the artistic conventions of his day, astonished, delighted, and dismayed his contemporaries. The full gamut of their reactions is revealed in these three biographies, which were first published in the decades following Rembrandt’s death and appear here in English for the first time in their entirety. These extraordinary documents, by German, Italian, and Dutch authors schooled in the conventions of neoclassicism, provide richly varied accounts of Rembrandt’s impact on the art world of his time. While the authors for the most part acknowledge his brilliance, sometimes grudgingly, they are wary of Rembrandt’s reliance on personal talent rather than on the rules of art. So, too, are they annoyed at his skill in manipulating the art market. Filled with colorful and amusing anecdotes, these critiques, handsomely complemented here with vivid illustrations, bring into sharper focus the originality and psychological acuity that remain Rembrandt’s trademark to this day. An informative introduction by the scholar Charles Ford situates these texts in the art-historical context of the seventeenth century.

First publication in English of three of the most illuminating contemporary assessments of Rubens' spectacular art and career.

A captivating exploration of the little-known story of Rembrandt’s formative years by a prize-winning biographer. Rembrandt van Rijn’s early years are as famously shrouded in mystery as Shakespeare’s, and his life has always been an enigma. How did a miller’s son from a provincial Dutch town become the greatest artist of his age? How in short, did Rembrandt become Rembrandt? Seeking the roots of Rembrandt’s genius, the celebrated Dutch writer Onno Blom immersed himself in Leiden, the city in which Rembrandt was born in 1606 and where he spent his first twenty-five years. It was a turbulent time, the city having only recently rebelled against the Spanish. There are almost no written records by or about Rembrandt, so Blom tracked down old maps, sought out the Rembrandt family house and mill, and walked the route that Rembrandt would have taken to school. Leiden was a bustling center of intellectual life, and Blom, a native of Leiden himself, brings to life all the places Rembrandt would have known: the university, library, botanical garden, and anatomy theater. He investigated the concerns and tensions of the era: burial rites for plague victims, the renovation of the city in the wake of the Spanish siege, the influx of immigrants to work the cloth trade. And he examined the origins and influences that led to the famous and beloved paintings that marked the beginning of Rembrandt’s celebrated career as the paramount painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Young Rembrandt is a fascinating portrait of the artist and the world that made him. Evocatively told and beautifully illustrated with more than 100 color images, it is a superb biography that captures Rembrandt for a new generation.

Using the artist's self-portraits as a starting point, the author explains how Rembrandt exemplifies the ability to confront life with passion, honesty, and an uncompromising acceptance of who we are.

This engagingly written study presents a rich picture of a dynamic society that had torn itself away from the mediocrity of its past--a stagnant nation of peasants and fishermen--to pursue an overseas empire that led to great financial wealth and a highly sophisticated cultivation of the arts. This classic work first appeared in English translation in 1963.

John Berger, one of the world's most celebrated storytellers and writers on art, tells a personal history of art from the prehistoric paintings of the Chauvet caves to 21st century conceptual artists. Berger presents entirely new ways of thinking about artists both canonized and obscure, from Rembrandt to Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock to Picasso. Throughout, Berger maintains the essential connection between politics, art and the wider study of culture. The result is an illuminating walk through many centuries of visual culture, from one of the contemporary world's most incisive critical voices.

For Rembrandt, as for Shakespeare, all the world was indeed a stage, and he knew in exhaustive detail the tactics of its performance: the strutting and mincing, the wardrobe and face-paint, the full repertoire and gesture and gimace, the flutter of hands and the roll of the eyes, the belly-laugh and the half-stifled sob. He knew what it looked like to seduce, to intimidate, to wheedle and to console; to strike a pose or preach a sermon, to shake a fist or uncover a breast; and how to sin and how to atone. No artist had ever been so fascinated by the fashioning of personae, beginning with his own. No painter ever looked with such unsparing intelligence or such bottomless compassion at our entrances and our exits and the whole rowdy show in between.

How do art and faith intersect? How does art help us see our own lives more clearly? What can we understand about God and humanity by looking at the lives of artists? Striving for beauty, art also reveals what is broken. It presents us with the tremendous struggles and longings common to the human experience. And it says a lot about our Creator too. Great works of art can speak to the soul in a unique way. Rembrandt Is in the Wind is an invitation to discover some of the world's most celebrated artists and works and how each of them illuminates something about God, people, and the purpose of life. Part art history, part biblical study, part philosophy, and part analysis of the human experience, this book is nonetheless all story. From Michelangelo to Vincent van Gogh to Edward Hopper, the lives of the artists in this book illustrate the struggle of living in this world and point to the beauty of the redemption available to us in Christ. Each story is different. Some conclude with resounding triumph while others end in struggle. But all of them raise important questions about humanity's hunger and capacity for glory, and all of them teach us to love and see beauty. "The artists featured in these pages—artists who devoted their lives and work to what is good, true, and beautiful—remind us that we can, and should, do the same." —Karen Swallow Prior, author of On Reading Well