Rembrandt's House: Exploring the World of the Great Master

by Anthony Bailey

Overview

No.4 Breestraat, Amsterdam, is an imposing 17th century house, but little different from many big old houses in the city. What makes it exceptional is that for twenty years one of the world's greatest artists lived here - Rembrandt van Rijn, master painter of the time. 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 from fashion and descent into financial hardship, which forced him to sell his home. With as many levels and hidden corners as the house Bailey describes, this is at once biography, travel writing and history of a golden age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857737830
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	10/15/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	66 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Anthony Bailey is an art historian. For many years a writer for The New Yorker, he is the bestselling author of Standing in the Sun - a Life of J.M.W.Turner, shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Vermeer: A View of Delft, shortlisted for the Whitbread biography prize; and many other books, including biographies of Constable and Velazquez. Bailey has been called "one of the best descriptive writers of his generation" (John Russell, The New York Times).

Table of Contents

Illustration
A Note of Thanks

Antecedents

Miraculous Country
The Golden Swamp
A House in the Breestraat
From Room to Room
Growing Up
Anatomy Lessons
Making a Splash
Life with Women and Children
Artist at Work
The New Jerusalem
Through the Needle's Eye
Age of Gold, Ink, and Tar
Questions about the House
Out of Doors
Acts of Love
Money Troubles
Domestic and Public Scenes
Resolution and Independence
Among Scholars
Chiaroscuro
Negatives
Continuing Presences

Afterword

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

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 returban 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

From the Publisher

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

"An engaging introduction."

Simon Schama

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

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

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