Book description
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…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Rembrandt's Eyes as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I loved this book because of its larger-than-life main character, Rembrandt van Rijn, the Golden Age Dutch painter who took the world by storm with his bravura artworks, like Night Watch. And who better to write about this great artist than the scholar Simon Schama?
I loved the way he brings Rembrandt to life, weaving into his life story the creation of his great works. I felt it was a bit like reading a Shakespeare tragedy as Rembrandt, once rich and famous, gradually descends towards poverty and loneliness as his marriage to Saskia fails and his debts spiral out of…
His earlier and best-known book, The Embarrassment of Riches, may offer a more comprehensive synopsis of the culture of the Dutch Republic’s Golden Age, including everything from the fashions, drinking and dice games that paradoxically thrived amid the strictures of Calvinism to the interpretations placed on passing natural events such as comets in the sky or the appearance of a whale on the beach. But Schama here gives us a loving and humane portrait of its greatest artist, doing in words what Rembrandt did in paint for his subjects, presenting his humanity with truth and dignity enlivened by inimitable…
From Hugh's list on understanding the Dutch Golden Age.
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