Young Rembrandt: A Biography
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- 14,99 €
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- 14,99 €
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Art critic Blom (The Scar of Death) employs Rembrandt's early works and the history of his hometown of Leiden, Netherlands, to trace the Dutch painter's artistic evolution from student to legendary master in this thoughtful, illuminating work. Filled with illustrations of Rembrandt's early etchings, sketches, and paintings, the book examines the artist through his surroundings, with the author, also from Leiden, stating, "I built my sentences from the stones of my city." Self-assured and determined, young Rembrandt (1606 1669) combined the three-stage process of "translation, imitation and emulation" in studying and interpreting others' works before creating more accomplished paintings of his own. Rembrandt studied Latin and classic art in school and at Leiden University; observed Leiden's religious battles and foreign travelers, apprenticed with respected painters including Jacob van Swanenburg and Pieter Lastman; and shared a studio and competed with fellow painter Jan Lievens. Once established on his own, Rembrandt attracted the attention of influential patrons like Constantin Huygens and devised elaborate etchings filled with images of himself or historic "selfies" (as seen in The Laughing Man) that helped establish his reputation as a creator of intimate and emotionally naked works (Andromeda) and led to his renown with history paintings (The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, more commonly known as The Night Watch). This portrait will delight both casual art fans and connoisseurs alike.