Rembrandt's House : Exploring the World of the Great Master
Author(s): Anthony Bailey
Few who walk past No. 4 Breestraat in Amsterdam would give this unassuming house a second glance. Yet for 20 years, this was the home of Rembrandt—one of the greatest painters in history, king of the Dutch Golden Age of art. This is the story of that house, the world Rembrandt observed in and around it and the special universe he created in his studio there. In this unique and imaginative portrait, Anthony Bailey pieces together the events and circumstances which shaped Rembrandt's career—from his beginnings in Leiden and early apprenticeship to his marriage and personal relationships; his restless artistic energy, creative triumphs, and, finally, his slow fall into financial hardship. With as many levels and hidden corners as the house Bailey describes, this is at once biography, travel writing, and history of a golden cultural age.
Review(s):
“An affectionate meditation on the mood, the texture and the circumstances of the painter’s life and times. Bailey...skillfully mingles his own impressions of Amsterdam today with the subject’s. [He] moves, as Rembrandt did himself, from the tangible to the intangible, the material to the spiritual, the personal to the social. It is an appropriate way to look at an artist who... immortalized his time and place.” —The New York Times
“Bailey has woven together a delightful image of Rembrandt’s Amsterdam, of the people he knew, the houses he lived in, the streets he walked. It is an excellent book, easy to read, and filled with fascinating information about Rembrandt and his world.” —The Washington Post
“Bailey manages masses of detail, from established fact to whimsical lore, with impressive skill. It would not be so absorbing, nor so evocative, if it did not return again and again to the sensuous terms of Rembrandt’s world. A literary triumph. It sets the standard for efforts to evoke the human reality of an artist of the past.” — Kenneth Baker, art writer, Boston Phoenix
"An engaging introduction." — Simon Schama, art historian
“This is a book about Rembrandt, but about Rembrandt in Amsterdam, and it tells us the history of that city without losing track of the artist... modest, rich and sensitive... This is a book to read at many levels; no one should visit Holland again without it in his bag. It is a labour of love.” — The Irish Times
ISBN: 9781780769240