Product Description
"Of those writing spy novels today, Daniel Silva is quite simply the best."
-The Kansas City Star

"The perfect book for fans of well-crafted thrillers ... the kind of page- turner that captures the reader from the opening chapter and doesn't let go."
-The Associated Press

Gabriel Allon, master art restorer and assassin, returns in a spellbinding new novel from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.

Over the course of a brilliant career, Daniel Silva has established himself as "the gold standard" of thriller writers (Dallas Morning News) who "has hit upon the perfect formula to keep espionage-friendly fans' fingers glued to his books, turning pages in nearly breathless anticipation" (BookPage). But now, having reached "the pinnacle of world-class spy thriller writing" (The Denver Post), Silva has produced his most extraordinary novel to date-a tale of greed, passion, and murder spanning more than half a century, centered on an object of haunting beauty.

Two families, one terrible secret, and a painting to die for ...

Determined to sever his ties with the Office, Gabriel Allon has retreated to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall with his beautiful Venetian-born wife Chiara. But once again his seclusion is interrupted by a visitor from his tangled past: the endearingly eccentric London art dealer, Julian Isherwood. As usual, Isherwood has a problem. And it is one only Gabriel can solve.

In the ancient English city of Glastonbury, an art restorer has been brutally murdered and a long-lost portrait by Rembrandt mysteriously stolen. Despite his reluctance, Gabriel is persuaded to use his unique skills to search for the painting and those responsible for the crime. But as he painstakingly follows a trail of clues leading from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires and, finally, to a villa on the graceful shores of Lake Geneva, Gabriel discovers there are deadly secrets connected to the painting. And evil men behind them.

Before he is done, Gabriel will once again be drawn into a world he thought he had left behind forever, and will come face to face with a remarkable cast of characters: a glamorous London journalist who is determined to undo the worst mistake of her career, an elusive master art thief who is burdened by a conscience, and a powerful Swiss billionaire who is known for his good deeds but may just be behind one of the greatest threats facing the world.

Filled with remarkable twists and turns of plot, and told with seductive prose, The Rembrandt Affair is more than just summer entertainment of the highest order. It is a timely reminder that there are men in the world who will do anything for money. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (198)

Maybe his best.
Well worth the wait. All the best Daniel Silva characters. Glad to see Julian Isherwood back. Will Shamron return. Great ending or a new beginning?

THIS IS A VERY POINTED WORK
I say pointed because it deals with the theft of goods and money by the Nazis and the Swiss Bankers during and after WWII.While the work is not quite as
exciting as some of Mr Silva's previous works, it is still very engaging and
for Silva fans of Gabriel Alon no one will be disappointed. Because of the
subject matter though I still give it five stars.More needs to be done in
this area.
For fans of this genre Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and Daniel Silva have been on
top now for some time.But Daniel Silva reigns as King.No question.And
I'm not Jewish, just in case you think I might be prejudicial.
Problem is...we will have to wait another year or so for the next adventures
of our beloved Mossad Assassin.Oye Veh !
I Cr 13:8a

Silva just keeps getting better and better
Daniel Silva just keeps getting better and better.I haven't read all of Mr Silva's books (but I have frantically searched and bought all I can find) but I am looking forward to doing just that!At times, this book read like poetry.Other times it became the thriller I've become used to reading from Silva.In all, I read this entire novel in just two days (a lot of airport layover time!).I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys a well written book with well developed characters your care for on multiple levels.Gabriel Allon doesn't get any better than this!!!

Interesting history lesson with no thrills
I'm a big fan of the Gabriel Allon series so I was really hoping to like this book. Unfortunately I came away disappointed. As I see it, there are 3 main problems with this book (NO SPOILERS) --

1. The plot is a direct lift from the far superior Gabriel Allon book "The Messenger".
The circumstances of the missing painting and the Swiss banks are different. But the actual machinations of the story -- unsuspecting attractive woman becomes undercover spy trained by Allon to infiltrate the lair of an evil billionaire industrialist -- are eerily similar. It's pretty much by the numbers. If you've read "The Messenger" you already know how the story plays out here.

2. Gabriel Allon has no role in this book.
Not once does he display why he's a legend in intelligence circles. The lethal assassin with a strong moral code is incidental to this story. He sits in living rooms and listens to other people's stories. He's a passive character. Two-thirds of the way through the book he runs some surveillance, makes a deal, and then disappears. If you're new to the series you'll probably be wondering what all the Allon hype is about. Veteran readers will come away feeling cheated.

3. Nothing goes wrong. There are no twists or mistakes by our protagonists. They do everything right. There's no tension when all your characters are getting along and working together flawlessly. Only at the end does Silva throw in a contrived complication to add some much needed suspense. But the resolution is dull and unsatisfying.

Start with the earlier books if you're a newcomer to the series. While "The Rembrandt Affair" does provide a fascinating insight into the link between the Swiss banking industry and the Nazis during the Holocaust it comes up short as a thriller. What makes it more disappointing is the fact that Silva has created a compelling and complex protagonist in Gabriel Allon. It's a shame he never uses him to his full potential here.

Recovery


In this latest entry in Silva's Allon saga, Gabriel and wife Chiara have hidden themselves away on a remote cliff in Cornwall, recovering from his last clandestine operation in Russia. Gabriel has no intention of coming out of retirement, but the murder of a fellow art restorer, and the theft of the masterpiece he was working on, bring him back into business as usual. What transpires is a full blown investigation replete with international arms dealings and the repercussions of Nazi war crimes. And the world is once again on the brink of nuclear threat.

Silva also brings to light the incredible, truly chilling role played by supposedly tolerant, peaceful Switzerland in preventing Holocaust victims from recovering stolen property and money. What he does best is recount his characters' stories, both happy and tragic, in such a way that they seem to be real living persons. The complications in this plot are provocative, seemingly taken from last night's newspaper headlines. Overall, however, most of the books about Allon follow fundamentally the same lines, and the narrative extols Gabriel's professional virtues to the point where he sounds like the next messiah. But Silva is a master, a very gifted writer, and the flaws inherent in this series are not serious enough to preclude reading each and every installment. ( In his afterword, he describes the sources that he used in writing Rembrandt, and he is unflinchingly pro-Israel. )
... Read more

Product Description
With international attention focused on the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt von Rijn’s birth, the world’s leading Rembrandt expert weighs in with a penetrating—and accessible—examination of the Dutch master’s life and art from both the biographical and the art historical perspective.

Rembrandt was an esteemed artist in his own time as well as in the present, yet there is much debate over how many paintings and drawings can really be attributed to him, and popular scholastic opinion varies widely. In his lively text, accompanied by 700 full-color illustrations, Gary Schwartz addresses the central controversies, providing art historians, students, and art lovers with essential new insights to help clarify the mysteries surrounding the great painter. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

CARD BOARD BOOK
It is really too bad that Flammarion bought Abrams. A great art book company has been reduced to dust. Now, instead of beautiful cloth bound books, we get card board books that are cheap, cheap looking, don't hold up, and they are ugly to boot.

Nice job, turning a great company over to a European company driven by accountants.

The Rembrandt Book
Excellent book. I think it is the definitive book on Rembrandt if you're looking for something that covers much of what Rembrandt did.

The best general introduction to Rembrandt
"The Rembrandt Book" is a welcome reprise of Schwartz's now out of print "Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings." Published to coincide with "Het Rembrandt Jaar" (the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth) this new volume is probably the best general introduction to Rembrandt available in English. Schwartz, an American who has lived in Holland for decades, was a student of the great Leonard Slatkes and has contributed to the academic study of Rembrandt both through his work as a writer and as a publisher. (He runs the Dutch academic press Sdu.) He also knows how to appeal to a general audience: he produces a regular column on cultural matters for one of the Dutch daily papers. "The Rembrandt Book" gives readers all of these sides of Schwartz at once: the scholar, the popularizer, the creative book designer (the book has a wonderfully dynamic layout). Schwartz offers a very accessible and largely narrative approach to Rembrandt, but he does not shy away from connoisseurship issues, and he has the authority and credibility to weigh in on some of the more hotly disputed attributions. Every student of Dutch painting should read this book.

rembrandt deserves better
For an artist, the main reason to buy an art book is for the reproductions, not the text. The reproductions in this book are of high quality, but unfortuneately the vast majority are quite small, about the size you would expect for a typical entry in an exhibition catalogue. The exceptions are the wonderful full-page plates that precede each chapter; they really show what this book could have been if the focus had been Rembrandt's art and not the author's text. A further problem with this book is the inclusion of numerous etchings and drawings, intended to show the full scope of Rembrandt's output in a single volume. Its an admirable idea, but Rembrandt's graphic work has already been amply covered in the fine editions from Dover and its inclusion here feels unnecessary and takes valueable space away from the paintings. What Rembrandt really deserves is a large, high-quality book devoted to showing all his paintings with numerous details of each. Something similar to the excellent monographs from Taschen on Leonardo and Michelangelo.

A core addition
Compiled and written by one of the world's leading experts on the life and work of Rembrandt von Rijn as part of the 400th anniversary of his birth, "The Rembrandt Book" is a 384-page compendium of biography and history of the Dutch master's life and art. Beautifully and visually enhanced with 700 full-color illustrations, "The Rembrandt Book" also provides interested readers with an introduction and analysis of all the various controversies and debates over Rembrandt in terms of just how many paintings and drawings can be accurately and definitively attributed to him. A core addition to personal, community, art school, and academic library Art History reference collections, "The Rembrandt Book" is most especially recommended to the attention of art historians, art students, art enthusiasts, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the colorful life and personal mysteries involving one of Europe's most famous and influential painters. ... Read more

Product Description
Over 300 works—portraits, landscapes, biblical scenes, allegorical and mythological pictures and more—reproduced in full size directly from a rare collection of etchings famed for its pristine condition, fresh, clean impressions, rich contrasts and brilliant printing, With detailed captions, a chronology of Rembrandt’s life and etchings, a discussion of the technique of etching in his time and an excellent bibliography.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great reference tool
A valuable reference tool at a wonderfully affordable price.Very pleased with my purchase.

Complete Etchings of Rembrandt
A goodl collection for the priceThe Complete Etchings of Rembrandt: Reproduced in Original Size

The encyclopedia of Rembrandt etchings
What a wonderful feeling having ALL Rembrandt etchings at hand in one single volume, all in original size and breathtaking printing quality. You get the impression of being all of a sudden a nineteenth century Rembrandt collector who overnight succeeded in having the complete collection. It's really a magic feeling, merit of the outstanding quality of the reproductions. Weight has been put on the graphic part, text is too little - could have been somewhat richer.

Rembrandt Etchings
We first saw this book as a reference source in an art gallery that was selling original Rembrandt etchings. The book provides an explanation of how the etchings were produced and provides photos of all (found) Rembrandt etchings in their original sizes. Since we were not very familiar with Rembrandt's etchings or with the differences in the appearance of originals produced later using the same plates, this book helped provide us with a means to evaluate the ones being sold at the gallery.
The book is also priced well and makes a great coffee table book.

Artist and innovator.
Rembrandt didn't invent etching, but he very nearly reinvented it. He did more with mixed processes, especially drypoint and etching, than anyone before him. He was also among the first to use etching as a drawing medium, giving it a freedom it had never had before.

One distinctive feature of this book is that each print is reproduced full size. That gives the viewer unique insight into each work - was it small enough to fit the hand, or so big it had to be worked on a bench or table? Just how fine was that texture of lines? Even the biggest prints are presented full size, in a set of oversized sheets that come with the book.

Probably hundreds of authors have written about Rembrandt's art, especially his drawing and etchings. I don't have much to add except what I personally have learned from his work. As well as light and dark, Rembrandt modulates a picture in levels of detail. Look at B76, for example, "Christ presented to the people." The central figures have expression and nuance. Outliers, like those towards lower left are barely sketched in. It's a fascinating way for the artist to guide the viewer's attention.

One author (I forget who) was asked to name the finest printmaker of all time. He started by eliminating Rembrandt, on the grounds that this master went so far past any mortal skill that he was outside of merely human history. This book shows just where that claim came from.

//wiredweird ... Read more

Product Description
Presents a biography of Rembrandt ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Get to know this great art book (and the whole series)!
The books in this series are the best books I've seen to introduce children to great artists."Getting to Know Great Artists" books bring to life the person behind the painting with fun cartoons about hislife.Why did Rembrandt start painting?What's so great about hispaintings?This book makes kids care about the man and his art.Your kidswill wind up knowing more about Rembrandt than most adults ever will!Thecombination of cartoons with color photographs of the artist's paintingsmakes the book lively to look at.The text is interesting and easy toread.The artist's greatest works are shown within the context they weremade: what was going on in the artist's life, how the work was received bysociety at the time.I recommend this whole series of "Getting toKnow Great Artists" very highly. ... Read more

Product Description
Rembrandt's intriguing painting technique stirred the imaginations of art lovers during his lifetime and has done so ever since. In this book, now revised, updated, and with a new foreword by the author, 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 and offers a view of Rembrandt's daily practice and artistic considerations while simultaneously providing a more dimensional image of the artist.
Copub: Amsterdam University Press ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Very informative.
As so many people have already said, this book is fantastic.It's definitely a book meant to be read by a painter as it gets very technical in some chapters.But if you are a serious painter, chances are you have been mesmerized by one of Rembrandt's paintings at some point, and if that's the case, this book is the best that you can buy on the subject. One of the most enlightening aspects of the book was that the author often uses 350 year old quotes or anectdotes relating to Rembrandt to prove his points.He dismisses some of the Romantic myths about Rembrandt's working methods, (which is refreshing) and outlines Rembrandt's general logic insightfully, starting immediately with paintings from his youth.I find myself constantly rereading or opening this book to study the pictures, which are very high quality.

Great Book For Both Artists and Art Historians
The one thing that I found most fascinating about this book is that it discusses some of the things that you only learn in art class. From very practical things like the process of painting, to more theoretical stuff like how to create space on a flat canvas. I always thought that most of these art theoretical ideas were more of a contemporary thing. But if you read this book you'll see that the author traces many of them all the way back to Rembrandts day. It was a really important step for me to see this because I feel like it validated some of the things I have been taught. I can finally say to myself "Ok, the teacher didn't just pull that out of his butt, it actually has a long history and a firm foundation."

Best research book on an old master I've ever seen
Superb scholarship and careful research make this one of my all time favourite art books. I bought this book years ago as a first edition printing and it's remained one of my favourites ever since.

If every art historian was this meticulous the bulk of the old masters secrets would be open for all. So many art books that critque great artists are flawed and obviously written by people who don't paint. They describe the obvious or miss important details that a real artist would look for. So when you get such a high standard of scholarship and research on a subject from an actual painter, the results are vastly superior to anything else on the market. And when the subject is Rembrandt, it's a book worth having if you love art.

This is a scholars review of a subject he genuinely does understand.

Worth every penny and highly recommended for any art lover, historian or classical painter.

Finding out more about Rembrandt
I was born and raised in Amsterdam and have been familiar with the works of Rembrandt.This book gave me a very new and fresh insight on the way Rembrandt approached his works and I could vividly picture the Dutch artist painting in his atelier.It was fascinating to read about the research that has been done on all the art produced by Rembrandt and the conclusions that became apparent, dispelling various myths.For instance, I was surprised to find out that there was a separate craft that dealt with "ready-made" wood panels and canvases.As a student in painting, this book has given me invaluable insight into the way Rembrandt worked. Mr. van de Wetering has a very engaging and interesting writing style and his information is more than worthwhile for anyone with an interest in art.

Great book for Rembrandt-nerds
A great, well illustrated and rich work, applying all the newest research and technology in the quest to reveal the working methods and workshop practice of Rembrandt. Well written, the book takes you on a journey through all the minute details of Rembrandts artworks, as well as other artists of his time. Mind you, this is not a how-to-paint-like type of book, but a review of a scientific research program concerning the paintings of Rembrandt. A book for artists, art historians and plain nerds. ... Read more

Product 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 face-paint, the full repertoire and gesture and gimace, 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; and how to sin and how to atone. 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 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.Like 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 fitully recognized by his contemporaries, who fell into bankruptcy and died in poverty. So there is probably no painter around whose life more legends have grown up, 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 over 20 years, shows that the true biography of Rembrandt is to be discovered in his pictures. Through a succession of brilliant descriptions and interpretations of Rembrandt's paintings threaded into this narrative, he allows us to see Rembrandt's life clearly, and to think about it freshly. But this book moves far beyond the bounds of conventional biography or art history.With imaginative sympathy, and based on his profound knowledge of Holland and the Dutch in the 17th century, Schama conjures the world in which Rembrandt moved - its sounds, smells and tastes as well as its politics - and 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. He shows us the central importance of Rembrandt's beloved wife Saskia and, after her death (Rembrandt was later forced to sell her grave, so complete was his ruin), of his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels. Above all, he demonstrates the profound effect on Rembrandt of the leading master of the immediately preceding generation, the great Catholic, Antwerp painter 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 against whose biography Schama sets Rembrandt's in illuminating counterpoint.Amazon.com Review
The great 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn left usso many arresting self-portraits, painted at every stage in hiseventful life, that his distinctive face and bearing are a familiarpart of the 20th-century cultural landscape, a recognizable presencein galleries across Europe and North America. Nonetheless, the artisthimself remains an enigma. Rembrandt was a notoriously difficult manand an inveterate risk taker in life and art: his aspirations to agrandiose Amsterdam lifestyle in the heyday of his popularity as apainter of portraits and large-scale historical works bankrupted him,and he died in relative poverty. His personal effects and treasuredcollection of paintings and natural rarities were sold off anddispersed, leaving the historian with a tantalizingly scant body offragmentary records around which to build a convincing biography.

In Rembrandt's Eyes, Simon Schama--the leading historical craftsman of our era, with a career-long commitment to Dutch history--succeeds with consummate skill in bringing the heroic painter of such masterpieces as The Night Watch and Portrait of Jan Six vividly to life. Returning to the bustling Dutch world with which he first made his reputation in the bestselling Embarrassment of Riches (1987), Schama re-creates Rembrandt's life and times with all the verve and panache of a historical novelist--while never for an instant losing his scrupulous grip on recorded fact and detail. The telling surviving fragments of archival information about Rembrandt's personal and professional history are skillfully embedded in a rich, dense tapestry of the commercial whirl and political hurly-burly of the 17th-century Low Countries--a divided territory, split between the Catholic and Protestant faiths and the contested powers of the Spanish Hapsburgs and the Dutch Republic--with the tentacles of the tale reaching into the most unexpected shadowy corners of European love and war, aspiration and intrigue.

Rembrandt's Eyes is, in fact, two biographies for the price of one. From the outset, Schama contrasts the life of Rembrandt with that of his older, equally talented countryman Peter Paul Rubens, whose meteoric rise and sustained success as a society painter forms a revealing contrast with Rembrandt's unhappier relationship with fame and fortune. The comparison is a telling one. Where Rubens furnishes the wealthy and powerful with glorious reflections of, and visual foils for, their social and political aspirations and glory, Rembrandt can never resist testing the envelope of taste and stylistic acceptability. His challenge to his clients to embrace the shock of his painterly experiments with technique, texture, and composition ultimately produced his downfall. The Amsterdam town council took down his The Oath-swearing of Claudius Civilis, rolled it up, and returned his masterpiece to him to be cut down in an attempt to sell it to a suitable buyer.

This is a gorgeous book to own, too. Rembrandt's Eyes is printed on heavy, high-gloss paper and lavishly illustrated throughout in full color. The double-page color spreads of the most memorable of Rembrandt's works will take readers' breath away. But above all, this is narrative history at its very best, a page-turner and an adventure story that will make the reader laugh and cry by turns in the time-honored tradition of masterly writing. --Lisa Jardine ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

Rembrandt's Eyes
Simon Schama is a true gift to the historian and art lover alike. His masterful prose, detailed yet captivating storytelling are unrivaled. He has a very pleasant bias in favor of intellect and, as he sees it, truth. I never tire of him and wish he were more in evidence as a commentator in other media, including TV.

Wonderful book on the times and art of Rembrandt
I'm going to be brief here. First, my in-depth knowledge of the Dutch Masters is limited, so I will not comment on the veracity of Mr. Schama's information on this. However, the book was very easy to read, even for a book of such depth (and pages!) I actually found the chapters on Peter Paul Rubens to be the most fascinating. Contrasting Rubens and Rembrandt on opposite sides of the religious divide of the Lowlands was very interesting and gives us great insight on an era mostly forgotten by modern people.

I am more an historian than artist, so at times his commentary (while obviously based on a great love of art) on the paintings of Rembrandt went on a bit much for me, but I certainly can see where a true art historian would love these passages.

Overall it is a wonderfully fascinating book that reveals so much about the life and times not only of Rembrandt, but of Rubens, Constantine Huygens, and the triumphal and sad history of the Revolt of the Netherlands.

Five Star Perfection
There is no better writer about art or art history than Simon Schama.He helps me see things and then I think "Of course, why didn't I think of that"He has a way of making obscure things clear.All of his books are first rate.

Excellent book about Rembrandt and his times
Being Dutch, I remember as a kid how my teacher was mesmerizing about how wonderful it would be to have a big enough telescope to catch all the emitted light from long ago and to be able to see Rembrandt paint. I did not know why then, but now I do agree. How wonderful it would have been had he only lived 300 years more to light up all the museums in the world!
This book is about, to my opinion, the best painter of mankind, his life and work. It is also a dual biography about Rubens, since he was so important for Rembrandt.
The book works nicely chronological and winds its way through the younger years of Rembrandt til his last years. In the mean time we also learn a lot about not only his life in Leiden and Amsterdam, but also about the history of Holland of the 17th century. It is absolutely great to learn about for instance the Night Watch, for whom it was painted, who the people are on it, why it was so revolutionary and still the most stunning 17th century painting.
I always wanted to know, as far as recorded history allows us, about the background of his paintings; who ordered it, did they and Rembrandt like it themselves? And most of all: analysis of the paintings themselves: what 'effects' are used, and how? This book goes into wide details of this all without getting repetitive or boring.
Rembrandt is unique among all painters in his combination of talent and 'raffinement'. He could do anything: super precise works, impressionistic style where the paint itself was the 3d effect, portraits, group portraits, history paintings, landscapes, the best etches off all time. His touch and well-aimed strokes immediately got to the essence. His works under scrutiny come out even more unsurpassable and amazing. It is true that none of his students ever came close to his talent, and some of them tried for the rest of their life to master just some aspect of his art (for instance the light effects) while Rembrandt moved on to a more 'rough' style, although it was justly called in this book deceivingly easy to imitate, and of course, 'rough' here does not mean carelessly painted.
Basically he is the first (and best) impressionist in the history of painting.
I have been at the Rijksmuseum many times, and it does not matter which work you look at: Jeremia, his mother reading, the Jewish Bride, his hypnotisingly beautiful self portrait at a young age, it just shows that this is a once in a mankind kind of thing. Rembrandt has shown us once and for all what the art of painting can do, how it can lift our lives by trying so dramatically to imitate it. Indeed looking at his work, it almost seems that his paintings are triumphant over reality.
This book is a great read and the many colour pictures of his work are, needless to say, a pleasure to look at.
Only minus is, that Schama to my opinion is a little too modest about Rembrandt's genius.

Returning to Rembrandt's Eyes: An Appreciation
One of the pleasures of reading books from your own library is that they are always there for return visits.Reading Hockney's 'Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters' stimulated this reader to probe more deeply into some of the venerated painters.Simon Schama's fine book REMBRANDT'S EYES is like an old friend, an excellent resource book for facts about Netherlands painting, social and political history that so affected the works of the two featured painters Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens, a page-turner novel, and a catalogue of brilliant reproductions of paintings.This book satisfies - even more the second time around!

A hefty book at over 750 pages, there is not a page that Schama does not use his charming style of writing to slowly inform.We learn about the atmosphere into which Rembrandt was born, follow his works from the earliest examples through his entire career, encounter his passion for elegance and his fall into poverty, and understand his envy of the creatively and socially successful Rubens.Not a book of gossip, this, but instead a biography well documented in a fine bibliography (no mean feat for a history of a great man without much written contemporary documentation!) and a survey of illustrations that augment the story as well as any yet written.

For those who hunger for knowledge about a famous painter yet who deign to wade through the usual dry treatise format, welcome to the class with Schama. This is a book that will endure (first printed in 1999 and now available in paperback) because of the stature of the subject AND the stature of the author. Hats off to Simon Schama who so entertainingly and successfully takes us behind Rembrandt's eyes to see his work as few have shown it.Grady Harp, December 06
... Read more

Product Description
Although the extensive literature on Rembrandt could fill a small library, there has been no up-to-date survey of his extraordinary achievement as a draftsman. Renowned Rembrandt scholar Seymour Slive fills this void with his scrutiny of some 150 drawings culled from a corpus of about eight hundred by the master. The drawings, reproduced in color, are accompanied by etchings and paintings by Rembrandt and others, including Leonardo and Raphael. Unlike other publications of Rembrandt's drawings, they are here arranged thematically, which makes his genius crystal clear. Individual chapters focus on self-portraits, portraits of family members and friends, the lives of women and children, nudes, copies, model and study sheets, animals, landscapes and buildings, religious and mythological subjects, historical subjects, and genre scenes. Slive further discusses possible doubtful attributions, which account for the considerable reduction from earlier times in the number of drawings now ascribed to the master. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

valuable volume on Rembrandt drawings
Although the literature on Rembrandt's life and artistic output is immense, there are relatively few volumes that concentrate on his drawings. There are around 800 authenticated drawings and this Getty publication considers 150 of them. Seymour Slive (born in 1920!) is an acknowledged authority on Dutch art and supplies an easily read, well written and informative commentary on each work. There are also additional associated illustrations of other works by Rembrandt and other artists. This book is beautifully printed-good quality paper and superior color reproductions. Strongly recommended.

What makes a Rembrandt a Rembrandt: his gift as a draughtsman.
Written by one of the most knowledgeable Dutch painting scholars, this book is a marvelous study of Rembrandt's drawings. The works are classified according to their subject (self-portraits, family portraits, genre scenes, nudes, animals, etc) and the book covers vitually the entire scope of Rembrandt's art as a draughtsman, with 267 colored illustrations (about a third of the artist's output) and individual analyses of each and every illustrated drawing.

The quality of the illustrations and of the text make this publication an indispensable one in any good fine arts library. ... Read more

Product Description
In a world where intellectual property (IP) lies at the center of the modern company's economic success or failure, Rivette and Kline suggest that IP management must become a core competence of the enterprise. Such an approach will require a radical break from the way corporate America has historically treated intellectual property. For most of this century, patents were not seen as profit-generating assets, but rather as cost centers of dubious value. Accordingly, intellectual property issues have usually been handled as a legal function, separate from business strategy. But now CEOs and other senior executives need to become knowledgeable about IP. They will have to think about intellectual property as a major lever of value creation for their companies.

Rembrandts in the Attic shows how to utilize intellectual property as both a corporate asset and a strategic business tool to enhance the commercial success of the enterprise. Rivette and Kline present case studies of companies, such as IBM, Avery Dennison, Xerox, Lucent, Gillette, Dell, Texas Instruments, and Hitachi, which have deployed their patents as competitive weapons to capture and defend market share, outflank and out-market rivals, increase R & D effectiveness, and achieve greater results in mergers and acquisitions and joint venture activities.

The book offers tools and techniques to help companies utilize their intellectual property.The authors also devote a chapter to the so-called Internet Patent Wars-the controversy surrounding recent Patent and Trademark Office decisions to grant patents for business models, particularly in the e-commerce arena--and the rise of the Open Source Code movement and the challenges and opportunities presented by alternative IP practices.Amazon.com Review
If you think patents are just about protecting inventions suchas the film projector, you're missing the big picture. Now thatideas can be protected--for example, Priceline.com's businessmodel--patents can be wielded to intimidate competitors, uncover theirstrategies, capture market segments, and, for many companies, generatemillions in licensing revenues. Whether patented ideas will ultimatelyhelp or hinder innovation is still under debate (see Owning theFuture). In Rembrandts in the Attic, however, authorsKevin Rivette and David Kline get down to business, offering practicaladvice for competing in today's intellectual property arena.

Their advice ranges from the simple to the sublime. First, theysuggest, take stock of the patents you already own. Many companies aresitting on unused patents that could be worth millions. For example,IBM licensed its unused patents in 1990, and saw its royalties jumpfrom $30 million a year to more than $1 billion in 1999, providingover one-ninth of its yearly pretax profits. And if you can't findbuyers for your unused patents, then look for companies that areinfringing upon them--companies that might owe you a piece of theirprofits. Rivette and Kline offer "patent mining" techniques to spotsuch potential infringers that can also reveal where your competitorsare headed and help you get there before they do. Overall,Rembrandts in the Attic is a crafty and practical guide forcompanies that may have untapped riches in storage. --DemianMcLean ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Forced to read in a 2008!!! MBA Class
It's the end of 2008 and this is the second "old" book assigned for reading in an MBA class.The other one had "Future" in the title and was also written in 2000/2001 time frame.My choice of institutions is now in question given their assigned reading.

This book seemed like an Ad for the author's consulting.It was inspiring in one sense.If I ever write a book, I will be sure to have a good writer co-author it so that my reader doesn't suffer through bad writing.

As a small business person, I was given no insight into how to start performing the prescribed techniques other than to contact my local patent attorney or the author.

Maybe this would have been interesting to me in 2000.But the technology he mentioned has changed substantially since the writing.I used to work in Legal IT in an IP company and vendors of IP software would fly out at a moment's notice if you so much as showed interest in their product.So I've seen newer versions of most of the software he is describing.

Unless you work for a corporate giant in the executive suites or have deep pockets, this book is about as interesting as how to drill for diamonds, another sport I'll never pursue.

One saving grace about the class is I was also assigned to read the book The Wisdom of Crowds, which was delightful, useful, well-written, and intriguing.

My instructor must get a cut of this book's sales.

Must Reading for Entrepreneurs, Inventors, and Managers
Spellbinding. I laughed. I wept. How could Xerox PARC miss a $500,000,000 patent opportunity in the graphical user interface? Easy, they didn't recognize that someone else might have a use for something they had no use for. Yes, I laughed and I cried.

A book on why you should have an IP strategy
This well written book will convince you that an IP strategy is important. If you have some "entry-level" understanding of the strategic concepts related to IP, this book will be of little help. The concepts presented are of interest but they are presented from a superficial perspective. For instance, the concept of IP map is interesting and is accessible from one of the author's consulting firm...

Rembrandts and Understanding the New Economy
I would like to put Rembrandts into the context in which it was created.Rembrandts was conceived and co-authored by my friend and business partner of the past 15 years, Kevin Rivette.We co-founded Aurigin Systems,Inc., formerly SmartPatents, Inc., in 1992 to make it easier for people working with patents to do their work.From this beginning Aurigin and, particularly, Rembrandts, have helped transform the way intellectual property(IP) is viewed in the business community. Historically, IP was viewed strictly as a legal right, but Rembrandts shows why, in a knowledge-based economy, IP rights are one of the most fundamental business assets, that often determines the success or failure of an enterprise.Understanding the fundamental importance of IP and why it needs to be strategically managed are the underpinnings of Rembrandts.Using the book as a guide post and Aurigin's innovation asset management solutions, allows companies to: 1) understand the IP rights they own; 2) visualize how those rights fit into the competitive landscape with others' IP; 3) help determine where to place their future R&D efforts; and 4)help decide how to strategically leverage their IP rights to help determine their new business directions, increase return on investment and, ultimately, increase shareholder value.The purpose of Rembrandts was not to set forth a cookbook of how to manage IP.Rather, the book was intended to help CEOs and other business, accounting and legal professionals understand the fundamental function and purpose of IP as a highly protectable and leverageable business asset in today's economy, whether in an old-economy or a new-economy company.I believe the book very successfully achieves that purpose in a highly engaging and easy-to-read style, with many real world examples and interviews.

Rembrandts will stand the test of time and, in hindsight, it will become a business school primer on the strategic business function of IP, as well as identifying IP as one of the critical elements in the shaping of the new global economy. I highly commend Rembrandts to any business executive, entrepreneur, accountant, economist, government official, lawyer, business consultant, business school professor or student of the business world trying to understand and operate in the new knowledge-based, global economy.

Patents as a form of token
A fine book written by good story tellers. It described how patents can be used as an asset, or even as a kind of currency, an exchange token, but itlacks depth.

I am interested in Apple's failure to manage its IP. WhileXerox was forced to license their photocopy technologies, Apple was doomedbecause they failed to license their Macintosh user interface to otherdevelopers. They have always been a hardware company. They sellunderpowered and overpriced plastic cases with miserable circuits. Theycould have license the look-and-feel to all system builders, and let theMacintosh UI become a _de facto_ standard, but they haven't. While theywere making easy money, Microsoft's Windows dominates the market, fewpeople ever know how fun it could be to use a well-designed interface.Nobody follows Macintosh interface today.

And now they have to abandontheir original look-and-feel to be more Windows-like (from OS 8). Andfinally they have to migrate to a mixture of Windows and NeXT when OS Xfinally ships in the future (hopefully). It is absolutely a bad move not tolet others share your IP, but this book did not talk about it.

As IPbecomes more valuable, many may improperly follow other people's advise toclosely guard their IP. As suggested in this book, IP can worth a lot. Adead company can make huge profit from selling their patents. However, ifbadly managed, your IP can be your worst burden.

This book really worthsthe money. But if it's worthy of your time, that's up to you to judge. ... Read more

Product Description
From the USA Today bestselling author of The Lucifer Gospel There is truth in art. But the truth can kill.

Young archaeologist Finn Ryan is laboring for a London auction house when she gets some unlikely luck.Along with the handsome young nobleman Billy Pilgrim, she's inherited a house in Amsterdam, a cargo ship off Borneo South Pacific, and what appears to be a fake Rembrandt.

But the fake hides a real Rembrandt portrait, which in turn hides a clue to a centuries-old mystery. Finn and Billy aren't the only ones who know what is at stake-and what is waiting to be found at the bottom of the South Pacific. Pursued around the globe by ruthless adversaries, Finn and Billy are thrown into the hunt for a forgotten treasure that could change their lives forever-or end their lives in an instant. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Good fast read
I read this book in 2 sittings. It was certainly no literary gem, but it really held my interest. Great story and good characters typical of the great number of books coming out now similar to the DaVinci Code.

more than suspense
I love a good suspense novel, with the "romance" and graphic violence.I was very pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon this book.In addition to an exciting read, I loved the enter weavings of facts within the fiction.I enjoyed the book and finished more informed about history than with a usual suspense/adventure.I immediately purchased 3 more of the series and have enjoyed them equally.I have not read the introduction title, Michaelango's Notebook, based on negative reviews on this website, but having finished the last four, I may go back and give it a try.The ones I have read have certainly been far and away better than the reviews posted for the series beginning.

Terrible
The plot was very simplistic, the characters are bland, and there are very few plot twists in this book. This is not what I look for in a suspense novel. The author throws in just about every cliche in order to make the plot work, there are just too many coincidences to make the tale seem plausible, and there is just no depth to the story. Don't waste your time or money on this one.

plane book
This is a good beach read or plane book. Some of it could have been cut out but if it was, the book wouldn't be considered a novel. This is the second book I have read by this author and can't say he is a bad writer, but this is not up to DaVinci levels where a thriller is concerned. Again, good and just short of fast paced. Good enough to read and leave on a park bench for someone else to find.

Rembrandt's Ghost (Christopher)
I enjoyed this novel, but found the action a bit slower than Christopher's other works.If I hadn't read Michelangelo's Notebook, I do not know if the character development would have been compelling enough for me to rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.The author does a great job describing settings and historical information, but the secondary characters are not very well fleshed out.I enjoyed it, and would recommend it, but you may want to read other novels by the author first with the character Finn Ryan so you are invested in her welfare when reading this work. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Eye glance of a master
Rembrandt Drawings is a superb collection of drawings by the great Dutch master. They are intimate sketches which depict a glance. They are completely modern, predating the technique of the French modernists, and catch that first critical moment when the essential of a scene is grasped. Above all there is the instant seizure of a moment of humanity, a fleeting expression, query, puzzlement, wonder, but, strangely not a smile.
Three of the drawings belong to the more than 90 self portraits in which Rembrandt traced his biography. One is an image of the artist at the age of 23 and it is informative to compare with the oil painting which followed, a display of genius in handling light and shadow. But for all that, the naive sketch catches a mood that no longer exists in the magnificent painting.
The book is a treasure to browse and to ponder the profound humanity it contains. Its simplicity is an invitation to take a pencil and trace the same and similar lines, to explore the creative mind of one of the greatest artists who ever lived.

Finally, In Color
Rembrandt's drawings, though monochromatic, deserve to be in color. The variations in his pen lines and washes are part of their greatness, and I've waited for decades to see a book like this. I'm surprised it's in hardcover (I have about a thousand Dover books, all paperbacks) so it costs a few extra dollars, and it's no surprise that at least most of the reproductions are generations removed from the originals, but I'm hardly complaining. Up till now I haven't found a complete color collection of his drawings, and he is one of history's greatest (and most subtle) draftsmen, so this is a gift to the world. If we ever get a book like this reproduced from the originals, it will probably cost over $100.
And regarding the artwork, I'll quote my elder colleague and master draftsman, Don Lagerberg: "The older I get, the better Rembrandt gets." ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent
I purchased this book prior to seeing the exhibit at the Los Angeles Getty Museum.It was great to do some research prior to going to the Getty.It was a fabulous exhibit and the book helped me to really make a great day of it. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (13)

Almost Perfect
I thought this novel was wonderfully done. It has a combination of facts and fiction which is woven most delicatly into the books fabric- though I do think Lynn Cullen could have done a little better with how to arrange the drama of the book to make more of an impact it was still great. Almost perfect in fact. I strongly recommend reading this book, it isnt the type to strain ones emotions but does provoke you enough to feel some and keep reading. There is even a few times in this book that I got goose bumps. In the end the book was brilliant.
Also a nice side note, I have done research on Rembrandt an many of the things in the book are true, he did have a bastard daughter named Cornelia with his maidservant and a son named Titus etc. etc.

A Must Read!
I didn't think I would like this book because I'm not really into art, but this turned out to be a book I just couldn't put down.I started it yesterday, and I'm already finished.The characters were so real, and though the story is a work of fiction (for the most part), it seems absolutely believable.You won't be sorry if you give this one a chance.

Review of a Novel
I found this novel to be interestingly researched, and learned much about the plague of the times.Also, it was noteworthy to learn that Amsterdam was such an important center.But I feel that this story is aimed at the teenage reader, and find that it is rather repetitive in pursuing the plot.I was disappointed to find in the end that the main character is not, in fact, Rembrandt's daughtr. So, the title is inappropriate.

Romantic, Historical Art Novel
Wonderful!I'm a great fan of novels set in the art world -- Girl with a Pearl Earring, Luncheon of the Boating Party, etc -- and this book exceeded all of my expectations.I had no opinion on Rembrandt (either way) before reading this, but as soon as I finished, I had to know more about him.The characters were memorable and likable, the setting is one you can smell and touch, and the romance is absolutely DELICIOUS.I'd recommend this to both teens and adults who love historical fiction.

Extremely Enjoyable
I Am Rembrandt's Daughter was a believable, unique story set in Holland in the 1600s. The main character, Cornelia, is an average girl whose story gave me a lot of insight into the time period.

The book was very good simply because it kept me guessing as to what the ending would be like, and had an ending that wasn't too happy (like a fairy-tale) and left me satisfied. I highly recommmend it to historical fiction readers looking for a book that isn't dry. ... Read more

Product Description
Throughout 2006, all the world will celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest portrait painters that ever lived, the Dutch seventeenth-century master Rembrandt. (The exhibition Strokes of Genius: Rembrandt’s Prints and Drawings alone, which opens in November at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is one of the most highly anticipated of the decade and is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors.) Although Rembrandt is among the most important artists in Western history, and perhaps our greatest draftsman, no one has ever, until now, been able to pinpoint exactly how it was that he so precisely and effortlessly captured the spiritual essence of his subjects.~This thrilling, insightful, sophisticated and yet accessible illustrated reading-format study, written by the preeminent scholar and translator Michael Taylor, will be as enlightening and delightful to Rembrandt scholars as to lay readers. Taylor looks at Rembrandt’s self-portraits, his society portraits, historical paintings and biblical scenes, and identifies how it was that the artist rendered his subjects so alive, so full of earthy, flesh-and-blood vitality--which all boils down to his treatment of the nose.~Rembrandt’s Nose is a gem of a book, an intimate, candid and extremely entertaining engagement with the works of art themselves, interwoven with racy historical snippets that contextualize the artist’s breakthroughs and techniques. It includes some 50 reproductions and details, as well as a complete chronology of Rembrandt’s life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

NOT JUST on NOSES
I finished this book in two days.A short book, very focused, not just on noses, but on the spirit that stirred in the painter and those he painted.He was a genius whose work will doubtless remain on a pinnacle of human achievement as long as we appreciate painting as an art.A genius not only because of his prodigious talent, but because of his willingness to depict the fallibility, vast range, and transience of human existence.

His was not an easy life.The deaths of his first wife and two of his daughters;the rejections of others combined with his poor judgment that led to his insolvency.The rough competition from former students, the way he was betrayed and was seen as the betrayer by his first mistress and some of his most important clients.

He was able to depict whatever rose up within and without him.Lust, fear, madness, sadness, tenderness, pride, vanity, serenity, murderousness, resignation, smugness.... all those ways of showing our humanness and many more.

He was Whitmanesque in his putting on the mantle of humanity. But Whitman bragged about it: "I am this and I am that".While Rembrandt felt and saw all the nuances of what it is to be a human being, laid it out in paint and etchings, and left it for us to see for ourselves.

My thanks to Michael Taylor for his having shared his scholarship and intense interest and appreciation for Rembrandt with us.

spiritus lenis
I am looking at a digital reproduction of the Rembrandt I know best. I've been close to it at The Frick. It is one from his later, impoverished years. His expression unyielding despite soft, unsettled strokes. Many of the painter's portraits and self-portraits present the sitter's eyes as equally alive as the nose. When visible, the eyes live up to the widely understood role as points of entry into a soul. In the Rembrandts where the eyes are obscured as in the late great at The Frick, what insists, I've realized after reading Michael Taylor's book, is the nose! Taylor contends and has made a believer of this non-specialist, that the nose contains the irrepressible soul's assertion of itself. Not since Gogol's short story has the nose been so animated (the distinguishing quality of the one belonging to Cyrano was its size and nothing more, and the same goes for C.D. in Roxanne). What Taylor does for me is bring back together soul and breath, once one in the root "spiritus" before linguistic distinction. As for the writing, I found Taylor's prose engaging, accessible and like a Rembrandt, devoid of an esoteric language and satisfyingly human in Taylor's undeniable love for the work. This is no systematic, formal exposition of Rembrandt van Rijn. It reads as a collection of short, interconnected poetic meditations. The contents page is a poem in itself. Add to cart. Know for yourself the delight, and slight embarrassment it's given me.
... Read more

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Customer Reviews (6)

Light Reading
Very interesting book; fast reading. Strays from the subject at the end.Casual touch of tourist viewpoint fits in with the general mood.It referred me to Schama's The Embarrassment of Riches, which was HEAVY.

Rembrandt's Jews
Nicely written and only fairly illustrated, it opened up for me more questions than it answered.I would have liked more illustrations and more discussion of the art of painting in 17th century Holland, but you can't have everything in a relatively short book.The one important point that Nadler touches on is the way the Dutch painters and print makers saw the Jew and the Jewish community and portrayed them in their work. The fact that the Jew was portrayed in the art of an earlier period in Europe as ugly, twisted and dark, gives us an idea as to how the Jews were depicted and thus how this helped to spread anti-semitism among the populations of Europe. Unfortunately, art as well as literature played a role in developing and spreading anti-semitic feelings and beliefs throughout Europe.These Dutch painters break with an older ugly tradition and paint the Jew and his community in a better light. One simply has to look at the paintings and prints to see the sensitivity of the Dutch artists and their desire to capture the Jewish culture of their time.

Spanish and Portuguese Jewry...and Rembrandt

The Spanish and Portuguese Jewry in Rembrandt's Amsterdam is the ultimate paradigm of Sephardic rebirth. It was realized at the heels of the demonic relentlessness, notoriously known as the "holy office" of Spanish Inquisition. However, in Amsterdam the doors were open to members of the Portuguese Nation to reinvent themselves, to live in relative peace amongst their correligionist.These merchants and their families brought with them strong ties to overseas commerce but most important of all, the unyielding need to shed the dark cloak of Christianity, and worship in their ancient way. Many brought with them the noble bearing of the Hidalgo, With it's love for the better things in life such as; art, literature, and fine dress.Yet, besides bringing Iberian refinement to the Netherlands, together with the need to pursue a better economic life, their greatest achievement was that they built from the ashes of persecution, a lasting memoire, of Sephardic survival.It is From Amsterdam that the spark of Judaism branched out to England and the Americas, The Spanish and Portuguese Jews being historically speaking, some of the first Hebrews to bring Judaism west of Europe.
This testimony of Sephardic grandeur survives within the confines of Art and literature. Here we see Rembrandt in a sense, inadvertently chosen, to be a chronicler of the survival and rebirth of a proud and prominent people.
In Nadler's book we read this episode in Sephardic history unfolding in a very eloquent way. Nadler's research into this perplexing Jewish phenomena is noteworthy and I enjoy reading Nadler's account of interaction between The Spanish and Portuguese Jews and their Protestant neighbors from Amsterdam, specifically Rembrandt, who I have an artistic affinity towards. My only complaint being that Nadler could have given us more color plates to appreciate and mull over, while turning the pages.

Shmuel Fuentes Hazzan

Readable and Entertaining History
Part Art History, part Jewish history, and with beautiful illustrations, this book tells the story of the Jews who were expelled from the Catholic countries of Southern Europe, and how they were fortunate to find a home in Holland for the 400 years up until the Nazis. Rembrandt did quite a few Old Testament paintings and had Jewish neighbors and patrons, thus the connection. This is more a Jewish history than a Rembrandt biography.

Disappointing
After having enjoyed Michael Zell's book on Rembrandt and the Jews, I looked forward to the release of Nadler's publication. While Rembrandt's Jews is well-written and at times touching, I found it to be a pastiche of other books I have read on Dutch Jewry. What Nadler has done, albeit in an engaging way, is combine other scholars' ideas about Dutch tolerance of the Jews and Jewish life in seventeeth-century Holland (Yosef Kaplan and Miriam Bodian, for example), while throwing in a few works of art for illustration. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Some mystery solved
The title of the book hints that Rembrandt's mysteries will
be laid open. Lots of rhetoric but little insight into the
whys and wherefores of Rembrandt's art. I guess I was hoping
for an analyses of R's painting techniques, methods and recipes
instead what I got was more poetry than substance.
... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Reminiscent of Tracy Chevalier's best-selling Girl with a Pearl Earring, Rembrandt's Whore is the fictional monologue of Hendrickje Stoffels, Rembrandt's mistress, with whom he spent the last twenty years of his life. A sensitive innocent, Hendrickje escapes the harsh realities of her garrison hometown to become a servant in Rembrandt's household. She soon becomes his lover and closest confidante, filling the void left by the death of his wife and two of their children. Enlightened by the positive values of beauty, truth, love, and art, Hendrickje is fated to discover the hypocrisy and fickleness of Amsterdam society, which ostracizes her and precipitates Rembrandt's final collapse. Matton has researched not only Rembrandt's life and works but also contemporary Amsterdam and the Black Death. In a serene, sensuous style of writing she provides an intriguing and intimate view into the painter's life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Interesting biofiction
Sylvie Matton presents an unusual story, fictional in all its moment to moment detail, but true and exquisitely researched throughout. The "whore" is Hendrickje Stoffels, the woman who lived with Rembrandt during the hardest years of his life, modeled for him, and bore a child with him. Today, no one would think much of the live-in arrangement. Then, the couple and Hendrickje in particular came in for censure from civil and church authorities, and from the art-buying public. Matton's story presents a sensitive, if speculative rendering of Rembrandt's slide in bankruptcy after the death of his first wife. That slide ended in his possessions being auctioned off by his debtors. For all practical purposes, he was stripped of the legal right to property, and lived in Hendrickje's receivership.

Matton's writing gives two different impressions. As a whole, the book presents a clear progression through late years of Rembrandt's life. The story is well informed by the body of primary documents and scholarship about the artist's life, down to minutiae of how the painting oils would be prepared. The story seems solid and all of a piece. At the finer level, though, the writing style has a pointillist character. For pages at a time, no two conescutive paragraphs relate directly to each other. Instead of a clear image plane, the isolated elements act like facets of a jewel, each with a different orientation but fitted together into some larger whole.

Although interesting and well researched, I have reservations about Matton's attempt to channel Hendrickje's spirit. Perhaps the author has done an good job of reconstructing the protagonist's inner life. Perhaps not - Hendrickje lived in such a distant time and social milieu that her personal experience of her daily life can never be recovered in its entirety. Still, it makes for an interesting excercise in research and conjecture.

-- wiredweird

Meet Rembrandt van Rijn
This is a great little book. I enjoyed it tremendously.It brings the artist to life and shows how life with the Rembrandt felt like for Hendrickje, a country girl who became Rembrandt's common law wife.The book shows how it was to live in Amsterdam back in the mid-1600s, in all the little details.It is also a study of the intricate social structures which dominate small communities everywhere.The book is thick with atmosphere and envelopes the reader in another age showing what it must have felt like to live with a genius, at the time of the Plague, and submerged in religious bigotry.It also artfully weaves into the story the feelings of a good woman as she copes with her love, her passions, people, misunderstanding, prayer and fears.A great read for those interested in Rembrandt and Holland during the 1600s.I read the book in the silence of my room, alone, so nobody could lurch me out of that atmosphere and that age !

Could have been an outsanding novel....
REMBRANDT'S WHORE takes place during the second half of Rembrandt's life, in Amsterdam.It tells the story of Hendrickje Stoffels, a 20 year old girl who moves in from the country, in order to serve as maid in Rembrandt's household.

Rembrandt has her pose for his paintings, and soon falls in love with her.Because of a contract he has signed, regarding not being able to marry after his former wife's death, at the expense of having to pay a sum which he does not posses, he is not able to marry her, and thus she becomes his "whore".

From a historical perspective, we are exposed to war, the plague, religious intolerance, and politics.All of these factors play important roles as they compose the background of the story.

The second half of Rembrandt's life was characterized by bankruptcy, illness, and his downfall from Amsterdam's best known painter to his being exploited by various political figures, who took advantage of his precarious situation. Hendrickje stands by him and provides him with care, emotional support, and a child, Cornelia.

It is because of her that Rembrandt is able to live, having lost his wife Saskia and children in a tragic manner.

The plot is well conceived and interesting.

I was unpleasantly surprised by the book's form.REMBRANDT'S WHORE is basically a monologue by Hendrickje, sometimes in first person, and others in second, as she talks directly to Rembrandt.Quite franky, the novel is often confusing.

Also, due to the fact thata 20 year old, practically illiterate, peasant girl narrates the story, the novel's flow is absolutely nonexistent.This makes it difficult to read and quite franky boring.

I have read quite a few biographical novels regarding the lives and times of famous painters, and this one rank's pretty low, and cannot be compare this to other books of the same genre.A specific example is Irving Stone's LUST FOR LIFE, about Vincent VanGogh.Now, that's a masterpiece.....

Deliberately Obtuse andEssentially Dull
Told from the point of view of Hendrickje Stoffels, Rembrandt's mistress, paragraphs in dark and darker colors, like Rembrandt's own brush strokes paint a picture of mid 17th century Amsterdam and the second half of the life of Rembrandt. It's a time of plauge, war, floods, superstition and religious intolerance.

Suffering after the deaths of his three small children and wife Saskia, Rembrandt finds solace in the arms of Hendrickje, a beautiful servant in his household, 23 years his junior. He never marries her (thus the name given to her by the towns people, "Rembrandt's whore") but clearly loves her, as he loves the child they have together as well as his beloved Titus, son of Saskia.

Written in a deliberately obtuse style with shifting points of view we are told of an endless succession of visitors to the Rembrandt household, as well as providing laborious information on his bankcruptcy and the loss ofhis house, his paintings and other possessions. Interspersed with this are amorphous descriptions of his paintings that can only be deciphered by those completely familiar with the Rembrandt oeuvre. This book is essentially boring and confusing.

My opinion
I must disagree on one point with the top most reviewer. This novel was written before Tracy Cheveliers Girl with a pearl earring. Although "pearl earring" was a far more interesting read. I found this book boring but oddly intriguing. It is worded strangely and sometimes the main character (its in 1st person) Begins to speak to Rembrandt. These parts are second person and it all becomes very confusing. I also found I didn't really care about the main character and the ending was a let down. It leaves one dissatisfied with the novel. You would have to really love anything to do with Rembrandt to enjoy this book.
I in fact found it so boring it took over three weeks to finish. And this is saying something when the book is only about 180 pages. I hated it so much I referred to is as the dreadful book that would not end. Once again someone really needs to enjoy aspects of Rembrandt's life to enjoy this complicated (what seems like) 500 page bore. The reason by the way that this received 2 stars instead of 1 is because the plot was enough to keep me reading up to a point. ... Read more

Product Description
This book examines the art and craft of motion picture photography through a veteran professional cinematographer's personal experiences on five major motion pictures, each selected to illustrate a particular series of challenges for the photographer.

"Every Frame a Rembrandt" is an expression heard on sound stages and locations the world over.While in most cases the expression is used lightly and not infrequently with a certain amount of sarcasm, its true meaning speaks highly of most cinematographers' commitment to producing the best, most interesting, unusual and memorable images for the screen.Through the five films he selected for this book Laszlo is able to show the broad range of complexity in motion picture photography, from the relatively simple "point and shoot" in the typcal western to complex in-camera effects.In recounting his "war stories" Laszlo is able to show the day to day activities of a cinematographer before, during and after filming the project, discussing equipment, film stocks, testing, labs, unions, agents, budget requirements, and working with the director and producer. The five films discussed are Southern Comfort, The Warriors, Rambo: First Blood, Streets of Fire, and Innerspace.The book is illustrated throughout with production stills from Laszlo's extensive collection (12 in a color insert).

The "war stories" of a seasoned Hollywood professional cinematographer
Explains how specific problems and challenges were overcome for each film
Illustrated with production stills from the author's personal collection ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Thoughtful and insightful book on filmmaking
Andy Laszlo gives great insight into the process of making a studio film, and the role of the DP. This book is a great way for an aspiring DP to learn the challenges, and the opportunities, that filmmakers face on location and in the studio.

A terrific book, and a must read for any film student.

Every Frame A Rembrant
If you want to read a book about Andrew Laszlo then this is the book for you. The book takes you through projects he personally encountered and has little in the way of practical advise/techniques for the individual film maker developing their own projects. The book is easy to read and entertaining,although i was looking for a text book style read.

One of the 'Great Books' in the Industry.
I first met Andy Laszlo some eight or ten years ago when he gave a two day seminar on Cinematography at NYU while I was director of the Department of Film, Video and Broadcasting at NYU's School of Continuing Education.One or two hundred students enrolled the first day, and as word spread across the campus of Andy's insights and trenchant comments, the attendance doubled on day two.When I learned of the existence of his book, I purchased it immediately.It is of immense value, not only to cinematographers, but also to directors, producers and writers:in short to anybody currently in film and video, or anybody who aspires to enter this field.It is immensely readable, written in clear, concise English and amply illustraed with some extraordinary examples, and a treasure trove of practicle knowledge.It is highly, highly recommended.

A "must read" for aspiring cinematographers & film students.
Cinematographer Andrew Laszlo has filmed more than thirty motion pictures,numerous television shows, TV movies and commercials in a career spanningmore than fifty years. In Every Frame A Rembrandt: Art And Practice OfCinematography Laszlo draws upon his immense expertise and experience toprovide the reader with a comprehensive, single-volume introduction to thisfundamental aspect of filmmaking. Laszlo' reveals the day-to-day activitiesof a cinematographer before, during and after filming a project, anddiscusses such critical and central issues as equipment, filmstocks,testing, labs, unions, agents, budget requirements, as well as working withdirectors, producers, and crews. Clearly and concisely written (andenhanced with additional material by Andrew Quicke), Andrew Laszlo's EveryFrame A Rembrandt is a "must" for any aspiring cinematographer,and an essential reference title for professional and academic collections.

oustanding cinematographer tells all
Laszlo's Hollywood career speaks for itself.Now, with great style and eloquence, he has set down a vital and helpful look at his field.As director of the University of Miami's Motion Picture Program, I can reportthat this book has proven useful and valuable to undergraduates andgraduates.More than a technical manual, it will prove informative andrewarding to anyone who loves film. ... Read more

Product Description
This book reinterprets the artist's life and art by placing it firmly in its social and political context. Using contemporary sources and documents, the author builds up the background to each painting and a picture of the society in which Rembrandt lived and worked emerges. Revealing many new facts about Rembrandt's personal life and about his art, the author often creates unexpected patterns in the traditional fabric of the Rembrandt story. A complete record of all the artist's paintings is included in this biography. ... Read more