Young Rembrandt A Biography

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.

Innovatively and provocatively, Rembrandt turned the art world upside down in the Golden Age. His poignant works and his life story continue to inspire and move the world 350 years after his death. The largest and most spectacular collection of his paintings, prints and drawings in the world is curated by the Rijksmuseum. In 2019, the museum honours Rembrandt with the exhibition 'Alle Rembrandts'. Never before has the Rijksmuseum presented an exhibition of all of Rembrandt's works from the collection: a one-off exhibition of no less than 400 Rembrandts. Together they paint an unparalleled picture of Rembrandt as a human being, as an artist, as a storyteller and innovator. Jonathan Bikker, research curator at the Rijksmuseum, describes the highs and lows of Rembrandt's life in an accessible way, opening up the genius of Rembrandt's character and the innovative qualities of his work to the general public.

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.

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.

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.

Surveys the life and work of the well-known seventeenth-century Dutch artist and discusses the reasons for the rise and fall of artists' reputations.

Jan Lievens (1607-1674), Rembrandt's boyhood friend, who embarked on an artistic career even earlier than his companion, once again is as highly regarded as during his lifetime, thanks to numerous recent publications and several exhibitions. The present monograph and catalogue raisonné discuss and analyze for the first time the extensive output of his early Leiden years: his paintings, drawings, and etchings from 1623 to 1632. Besides the book's comprehensiveness and consideration of the artist's work in the context of his Netherlandish contemporaries from Haarlem, Utrecht, and Antwerp, special emphasis is placed on establishing the chronology of his oeuvre. Only a solid foundation such as this would make it possible to determine more precisely than before Lievens's much discussed relationship to Rembrandt. What transpired was a most lively give and take between two young artists intensely searching for new ways of artistic expression whose later development after their respective move from Leiden took very different paths. Consequently, the careful examination of Lievens's early oeuvre sheds new light on Rembrandt's Leiden work.

This dazzling, unconventional biography shows us why, more than three centuries after his death, Rembrandt continues to exert such a hold on our imagination. Deeply familiar to us through his enigmatic self-portraits, few facts are known about the Leiden miller's son who tasted brief fame before facing financial ruin (he was even forced to sell his beloved wife Saskia's grave). The true biography of Rembrandt, as Simon Schama demonstrates, is to be discovered in his pictures. Interweaving of seventeenth-century Holland, Schama allows us to see Rembrandt in a completely fresh and original way.

Six different world cultures are the focus of Hands-On Culture: Japan, Mexico and Central America, Southeast Asia, West Africa, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Greece and Rome. These colorful volumes examine each culture's art, science, history, geography, and language and literature. From making sushi, to designing a drum to reading hieroglyphics, students use an array of hands-on activities to grow more culturally aware and appreciative if differences among peoples. Topics in this volume include: Egyptian religion: hundreds of gods Hieroglyphics: picture writing Playing games Drama: the Festival of Osiris Making a mummy See other Hands-on Culture titles

Rembrandt was an esteemed artist in his own time as well as in the present.