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Reviews (1)

Superb publication
Although budget-priced, this edition is a winner, in my opinion. All of Rembrandt's etchings are reproduced on a heavy-stock paper that is of the proper degree of shine necessary to bring out the full, crisp nuances of the etchings. The result are vividly life-like etchings that show all their intricate details. Faces and people come alive, almost jumping out of the page. The Dover people were right in thinking that only a shiny, heavy-stock paper could bring out the full details of the etchings, to create reproductions that are as closely realistic as the original impressions. Also, almost all of the impressions seem of the proper degree of sharpness and darkness necessary to bring out their details. My only problem is that the book is somewhat heavy and bulky, but this is the price to pay for the heavy-stock paper needed for excellent reproductions, each of the same size as the originals. There are also some extra inserts in the book that reproduce in full size several etchings that are too big to fit life-size within the dimensions of the book. The inclusion of these inserts is considerate on the part of the authors, showing their dedication to bringing out the full artistry of the etchings, and ensuring that the common budget book-buyer has full access to these etchings in their most vivid, almost museum-like form. ... Read more

Book Description

Reading Rembrandt explores the potential for interdisciplinary methodology between literature and visual art. In a series of close analyses of works by Rembrandt - works whose attribution is still challenged, but can still be considered within the context of this study - and texts related to those works, Mieke Bal questions the traditional boundaries between literary and visual analysis. Bal also studies Rembrandt's complex handling of gender and the representation of women in Rembrandt's painting. Although Reading Rembrandt's methods originate outside the history of art, the book demonstrates nonetheless the author's sensitivity to the visual aspect of Rembrandt's work. The works by Rembrandt gain in depth and interest, but an original perspective of the role of visuality in our culture emerges, which ultimately has consequences for our views of gender, the artist, and the act of reading. ... Read more

Book Description

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 the face paint; the full repertoire of gesture and grimace; 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; how to sin and how to atone; how to commit murder and how to commit suicide. 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.

More than three centuries after his death, Rembrandt remains the most deeply loved of all the great masters of painting, his face so familiar to us from the self-portraits painted at every stage in his life, yet still so mysterious. As with Shakespeare, the facts of his life are hard to come by; the Leiden miller's son who briefly found fame in Amsterdam, whose genius was fitfully recognized by his contemporaries, who fell into bankruptcy and died in poverty. So there is probably no other painter whose life has engendered more legends, nor to whom more unlikely pictures have been attributed (a process now undergoing rigorous reversal). Rembrandt's Eyes, about which Simon Schama has been thinking for more than twenty years, shows that the true biography of Rembrandt is to be discovered in his pictures. Though a succession of superbly incisive descriptions and interpretations of Rembrandt's paintings threaded into his narrative, he allows us to see Rembrandt's life clearly and to think about it afresh.

But this book moves far beyond the bounds of conventional biography or art history. With extraordinary imaginative sympathy, Schama conjures up the world in which Rembrandt moved -- its sounds, smells and tastes as well as its politics; the influences on him of the wars of the Protestant United Provinces against Spain, of the extreme Calvinism of his native Leiden, of the demands of patrons and the ambitions of contemporaries; the importance of his beloved Saskia and, after her death (Rembrandt was later forced to sell her grave, so complete was his ruin), of his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels; and, above all, the profound effect on him of the great master of the immediately preceding generation, the Catholic painter from Antwerp, Peter Paul Rubens: "the prince of painters and the painter of princes" with whom Rembrandt was obsessed for the first part of his life, and whose career was the shaping force that drove Rembrandt to test the farthest reaches of his own originality.

Rembrandt's Eyes shows us why Rembrandt is such a thrilling painter, so revolutionary in his art, so penetrating of the hearts of those who have looked for three hundred years at his pictures. Above all, Schama's understanding of Rembrandt's mind and the dynamic of his life allows him to re-create Rembrandt's life on the page. Through a combination of scholarship and literary skill, Schama allows us to actually see that life through Rembrandt's own eyes. In overcoming the paucity of conventional historical evidence, it is the most intelligently true biography of Rembrandt that has ever been written, and the most dazzling achievement to date of the art historian whose work has been hailed as "marvelously rich and eloquent" ... "rare, imaginative" ... "provocative" ... "astoundingly learned with verve, humor, and an unflagging sense of delight" ... that of "a master storyteller ... and a master of history."*

Quotes from the New York Times Book Review, Time, the New York Times, The Independent on Sunday, andNature, respectively.

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Reviews (18)

perceptive portrait of r.v.r.
Rembrandt left behind more self-portraits than any artist before or since. With his new book Rembrandt's Eyes, historian Simon Schama has added a new portrait of the artist, this one in meticulously and exhaustively researched, rhapsodically written prose.

Schama's heavy tome makes every attempt to be a definitive work on the painter, and it succeeds. First and foremost it is a narrative of the life and work of Rembrandt van Rijn, although calling it a "biography" somehow sounds reductive. It is equal parts analysis of Rembrandt's painting, documentation of his life, and history of seventeenth century Holland, so sections of the book can be read with profit by anyone studying the artist, his art, or the social history of the times.

The Rembrandt of Schama's book is a complex man, with hubris, greed and an enormous talent for portraiture. Early on he takes the monumentally cocky step of signing only his first name -- no "van Rijn" -- as if he knew his paintings would be studied for centuries to come. His understanding of humans and their personae was without parallel, Schama writes. "No painter would ever understand the theatricality of social life as well as Rembrandt. He saw the actors in men and the men in actors."

As his title suggests, Schama finds special messages in the eyes of Rembrandt's subjects. He notes that in art education painters were taught to put special care into their depiction of the whites of eyes, yet in many of Rembrandt's works -- Schama points to "The Artist in his Studio" (1629) -- the eyes are dull, dark pits. "When Rembrandt made eyes," Schama says, "he did so purposefully," and so in Rembrandt's Eyes he continually returns to the haunting eyes the painter painted.

Most of all, Schama's book is a meditative, entranced attempt to get behind the faces we see in Rembrandt's self-portraits. Schama reads Rembrandt's self-portraits in various costumes -- as a merchant, as a soldier, for example -- as indications of his elusiveness, as if each portrait were meant to conceal rather than reveal its subject. In analysis of one self-portrait, Schama writes that the painter "has disappeared inside his persona," inscrutable beyond the dead dark eyes of the painting. The artist's disguise hides his true self, and the critic is left to speculate. It seems that in this case Schama is grasping (as art historians must) at facts and attitudes that can never be certainly known, constructing and imputing elaborate guesses that fail precisely because the painter has succeeded.

Schama's reverence for Rembrandt and art in general winds up being both a virtue and a vice. The book begins with an epigraph from Paul Valery: "We should apologize for daring to speak about painting." It is difficult to imagine a guide through this world who is more well-versed and in love with his subject. But do we really want our biographers to be respectful to the point of silence? Nobody wants to learn about the masters from a guide who finds them too sublime to defile with comment. Granted, a hefty book like this is hardly "silence," but Schama's hushed tones do get distracting.

This book has the virtue of being as close to exhaustive about its subject as one could hope. There is little psychological interpretation that Schama leaves undone, and little consequential biographical detail that he leaves unmentioned. Rembrandt's Eyes, a mammoth book that takes on with grace the equally mammoth task of explaining what is behind the brooding eyes of Rembrandt's portraits, will be a definitive work on the painter and his work.

A masterpiece worthy of Rembrandt's life and works
Simon Schama's REMBRANDT'S EYES is undoubtedly one of the authoritative works on Rembrandt's life and paintings. Schama vividly depicts the unparalled and tortured genius of Rembrandt, a man who was brilliant in success and even more so during tragedy. To understand Rembrandt's paintings is to understand the man behind each brushstroke: strong-willed, prideful, and uncompromising in his art. Schama conveys the essence of Rembrandt with such force and effectiveness that we cannot help but appreciate Rembrandt's tragic life and artistic genius.

REMBRANDT'S EYES contains beautiful illustrations of all of Rembrandt's major works; the analysis of each is detailed, clear, and interesting. Through the course of the book, you will be fascinated by Rembrandt's self-portraits and the level of understanding with which he painted himself. Perhaps no other artist has given us such a powerful autobiography without the use of a single written word. This deep understanding of the human soul is evident in all of his works. Schama explains Rembrandt's paintings and his techniques in a comprehensive and powerful manner. If you are interested at all in the truly unique and fascinating genius of Rembrandt, REMBRANDT'S EYES is a must.

I would highly recommend REMBRANDT'S EYES to any person interested in art history, Dutch painting, or just Rembrandt. This book also serves as a powerful autobiography of a man with a very interesting story. Be forewarned though: this book is very long, and putting it down may be hard.

Doesn't have a focus and objective....very boring
When i bought this book, I thought that it would be an amazing and definitive book about one of the most brilliant genius of art.
But i was wrong, this is doesn't have a point, it goes to the biography of Rubens fathers, passing thru history, economy, and anything else you imagine, this is so borring for the people that actually want to know about Rembrandt and his work. So if you are looking for a book abou Rembrand and his work, this IS NOT....

GUARANTEED, this one never goes out of style!!!
Reading,or even browsing,this huge achievement simply overwhelms. Now it's obvious that all old masters books are immortal (especially if they have pictures) since the works have already passed the time test. But Mr. Schama's REMBRANDT's EYES must surpass just about every old master book in every way. It's one of those works that makes you glad we live in a society that can mass produce this kind of thing!!If you're an expert (which I am definitely not),I'll bet you'll totally agree with me. If you're a skeptic,or even a beer guzzling barhopper,you should still buy this book. Browse,read the author's insights,and be enthralled that a fellow like Rembrandt existed 350 years ago. For he is like Shakespeare,a monumental genius,born about 40 years after the Bard.But as a painter, he is a heck of a lot more accessible.His art is universal,no translations required,and no Cliff Notes either! Accompanied by beautiful photos,and brilliant commentary on many of his great works, you can buy this now,and know it will give you pleasure at the amazing creativity of a universal genius,even in old age! BTW, the artist's self portraits are only many of the wonders here,and they do show him in his older years.

luminescent portrait of the artist and the age
1629 -- the 60th year of the war for the Netherland. 128 thousand 777 men are under arms for the Dutch Republic .Prince Huygens, Rembrandt's benefactor, deciphers intercepted dispatches in the Prince of Orange's headquarters at Hertogenbosch. In Calvinist controlled Leiden 25 year old Rembrandt takes to portraying himself in armour. By 1631, when Rembrandt relocates to Amsterdam, the city's competing churches have come to a grudging accomodation. Despite the fractious political climate the city is a hot bed of manufacture and trade with the Orient. The savour of spices and silks, the rhythms of urban industries-- cloth fabrication., paper making, gem cutting, weapons forging, chimes through its neighborhoods. The artist thrives for a time in the vibrant economic climate. His pictures of prosperous burghers (and of course, himself) and religious scenes ingrain an exotic, cross cultural vocabulary and intrigue.

Schama's analysis of the paintings is as scholarly as his depiction of the historical forces which were shaping them, in a Europe ripped by religious war. He looks also into the unsettled ambition embedded in Rembrandt's artistry. No major artist of his time or since has painted so many self portraits, in so many guises. No other artist absorbed more of the texture of his time and place. His influences were political, theological, social as well as aesthetic and developed into an idiosyncratic genius. Rembrandt's eyes as the author notes, provide a lens into these turbulent times and the passions of the artist. Twenty years from conception to print, Schama's opus spans its subject with a detail as fine as the lace on one of the artist's collar pieces.

The author contrasts Jean Paul Rubens's ethereal idealism to Rembrandt's earthy colloquialism as metaphor for the political divisions of the times. Rembrandt was treading new ground in art. The compassionate consideration of human dilemmas and blemishes was a rebellion against the politicization of art in a time when painting was dogmatic and polemical. Rembrandt's tactile accouterments, lustrous colours, give an eidetic quality to metal, fabric or paper. The works had plural focal points producing a visual dynamic. The creamy pallor of irradiated faces are juxtaposed against some intricately detailed artifact-- lace, gemstone, coral, armour-- and those against props providing subtle sub-texts. They are bathed in an illogical light which seems to emanate rather than reflect from its characters. A narrative and cosmopolitan bustle energizes his artwork.

'The Repentant Judas', is one the best studies of the artist's ability to synthesize surreal contexts and intensely expressive figures into a cohesive spirituality. Schama spends 12 written pages on that magical evocation of purposeful community 'The Night Watch'. 'Two Old Men Disputing' shows Rembrandt's preoccupation with representing age and decay in dignified elegance. He had, though, had no talent for business or orderly finances. He was a compulsive accumulator and a mark for bad investments. That would eventually impoverish him even as his fame became well established. This was not lost in his later portraits, more abstract and rendered with a pensive, sombre defiance. The stern expressions of the 'The Sampling Officials' could well be the those of his creditors. Some transcendence reasserted itself in his final works, most remarkably in vital mysteries of 'The Jewish Bride' and 'Simeon and the Christ Child'

Schama writes objective prose, with an impressive command of his subject. This is no esoteric meditation. It is a exhaustive study of the development of a craft and of the society that spawned it. The book is a beautifully composited coffee table book with a distinctive literary and historical flavour. Schama has produced one of the great artist biographies of all time, and a depiction of an age, as any age is most clearly represented by its art. ... Read more

Book Description

Rembrandt changed the course of art history not only as a painter but also as a draftsman and printmaker. His output of some 300 etchings and drypoints represents a lifelong commitment to printmaking unequaled by any other 17th-century painter and comparable only to Picasso in our own time. Rembrandt's Journey unfolds the richness and diversity of Rembrandt's career as an etcher in the context of his paintings and drawings. Illustrated with nearly 200 works in all three media, this book traces the remarkable evolution of Rembrandt's art over four decades, from the robust physical energy of his early productions to the breadth, simplicity and meditative beauty of his later work. It establishes new and important connections among these works and among the three media that the artist explored throughout his career. It encompasses the wide range of his vision, from the tragic and spiritual to the earthy and comic. And it gives full due to Rembrandt's narrative sensibilities, showing how he endowed his figures (particularly in biblical scenes) with unprecedented psychological nuance and vividness. Published to accompany the first comprehensive American survey of his work in decades, Rembrandt's Journey offers a fresh, authoritative view of this endlessly familiar, yet still unknown, artist. Essays by Clifford S. Ackley, Ronni Baer, Thomas E. Rassieur and William W. Robinson. Clothbound, 9.5 x 10 in./304 pgs / 80 color 0 BW160 duotone 0 ~ Item D20118 ... Read more

Book Description

Rembrandt's intriguing painting technique has stirred the imagination of art lovers during his lifetime and ever since. In this book, Rembrandt's pictorial intentions and the variety of materials and techniques he applied to create his fascinating effects are unraveled in depth. At the same time, this "archaeology"of Rembrandt's paintings yields information on many other levels.

In art-historical research, the work of art as a material object is used increasingly as an important source of information about the painting itself, as well as about historic studio practice in general. The range from practical workshop devices to aesthetic and art-theoretical matters combined in this book offers a view of Rembrandt's daily practice and artistic considerations, while simultaneously providing a more three-dimensional image of the historical artist. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Everyone can be Rembrandt... NOT.
OK, so I read it all. Yep, everything in it, every inch of it. This includes in-depth discussions on materials, choices of colors, choices of canvases, panels, brushworks, techniques, history... of this genius painter. I also gobbled up scientific results on samples taken from his paintings, using such cutting-edge technologies as mass spectrometry (MS), x-ray analysis, and so on and so forth. Hurrah! All secrets revealed! I even read "between the lines" and "looking into" layers of colors in each painting with the hope of educating myself further how to think like Rembrandt, see like Rembrandt, and paint like Rembrandt. After all, I am on a mission here. You probably get the idea by now of how great this book is. Otherwise, I would have not bothered. Yep, you can count on it, it is GREAT! But... Yeah, without the 'but', then perhaps thing is just perfect, hence surreal. Some presumption in scientific testing seems to leave me a little "bitter aftertaste". Well, I said too much. It is time for me to stop and for you to read the book to find out for yourself.

The best monograph on Rembrandt ever printed
Rembrandt is perhaps the greatest painter in the history of the western cannon and this is the finest book on his work ever printed. The abundance of detailed enlargements -which really make an art book great and which are all too often lacking- are the next best thing to being in front of the paintings. They show Rembrandt for the enormous genius he was, both synthesizing the techniques that came before him as well as creating methods of application which to this day remain an enigma and elusive mystery. Rembrandt, a great draughtsman and technician, was also an outrageous innovator. The details in this book show sections of paintings that would make any abstracts expressionist's head spin. The scholarship of the text, clearly a lobour of love and lifetime devotion, are as worthy as scholarsip can be of art this magnificent.

What a lovely book.
This book has incredible prints and very good information on Rembrandt's painting technique. It is a wonderful book for anyone interested in how Rembrandt painted.

authentication
i have a painting of rembrandt and i want some one to email me back so i can contact some one to authenticate it contact. the painting is 1653 my email address is chivalry@bellsouth.net

Clear, detailed look into the painting methods of Rembrandt
Clear, open-minded, intelligent, detailed, and written with expert knowledge and love of the subject. Figures are high quality, very relevant, and informative.

Wetering writes as a scientist with an artist's eye.

Fascinating discussions of Rembrandt's use of underpainting and subsequent background to foreground painting method, the ingredients of his painting medium (no resin!), the effect of yellowing in the protective varnish layer, and other fundamental aspects of Rembrandt's art.

Read for the latest scientific insight's into Rembrandt's working methods and for greater appreciation of Rembrandt's abilities and works. ... Read more

Book Description

Scrutinizing his own features time and time again, Rembrandt left an extensive pictorial autobiography-his surviving self-portraits include 45 oil paintings, scores of drawings, and over 30 etchings. This absorbing book explores how Rembrandt`s self-portraits developed over his life span, why the genre was so important in his work, and how his innovative style influenced his contemporaries. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

The Master
It's about time that I found a (good) book on this subject. Rembrandts self-portraits (I feel) are of his most important work. The quality of the prints are wonderful...unlike 90% of the art related books floating around. The color reproduction is more accurate than most. This is a must have for any fan of Rembrandt...or for any true lover of painting.

Wonderful book on the self portraits of the master.
This book is facinating. It includes three good and fairly dry essays on the topic of Rembrandt's self portraits. More interesting are the prints of all the works that are considered his self portraits, and the detailed commentary on these works. The prints are very good and quite useful for the lover of Rembrandt. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An excellent collection.
This book is by far the most complete collection of drawings and paintings of women by Rembrandt. Very well-written and organized, the book reveals how Rembrandt perceived and expressed the beauty of the female body. Interestingly enough, Rembrandt went above the common practice of his time, that is the use of "goddess-like" proportion in painting females. At one time considered hideous by his contemporaries, Rembrandt's paintings of women are among the most beautiful, earthly, and sensual. Each painting reproduction is so vivid; readers who understand the process of painting by the Old Masters can somewhat picture how ingenius effects may have done just by looking into these plates.

A must-have for any art lover! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A real answer for a false problem..
Are you tired of the fuss about real or false Rembrandts? Then read prof. Svetlana book. First of all, Rembrandt was allways interested in such confusion and gladly endorsed it. If he could get a fee for all false stuff under his name or painted by his pupils, that would be fine. So, dont worry, in the end, all the Rembrandts in one way or another are authentic... ... Read more

Book Description

Seventeenth century Dutch painter Rembrandt's life, known to us almost exclusively through the paintings and tantalizingly thin written documentation, is the stuff of real drama: he survived several plague outbreaks, two wives, and four children. Taking their cue from Rembrandt's work, these lyric poems convey the emotional life of the artist and show him as deeply human: flawed, burdened, sympathetic, and desperately honest about himself and others. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

AMAZING BOOK
This book is a great book and it deserves the 5 stars

Great Job
Mr. Frech is the best teacher around and the biography is WRONG he lives in the heart of Da Nati. And he is a great teacher. He is my teacher and i like his book

Non-Poetry Reader Finds Enlightenment
Consuming Reading...and I am not a frequent peotry reader! Each poem took me to a seporate time and place - making me pause and think deeply about my life. Excellent collection to pull out daily. Very tallented poet with a bright future...I'll be watching for and buying his next book without question! ... Read more