Young Rembrandt: A Biography

Young Rembrandt: A Biography

Young Rembrandt: A Biography

Young Rembrandt: A Biography

Hardcover

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Overview

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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393531794
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 09/08/2020
Pages: 280
Sales rank: 508,908
Product dimensions: 9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Onno Blom has published several books about writers and painters, and in 2018 he was awarded the Dutch Biography Prize. He lives in the Netherlands.

Beverley Jackson has translated work from Dutch to English since 1989. She lives in Amsterdam.

Table of Contents

Prologue 9

1 RHL 19

2 Rembrandt's native city 31

3 The miller's son 51

4 The cradle woven from willow rods 61

5 The exploding musket 71

6 The new city 85

7 Behind Minerva's shield 95

8 The hand of God 105

9 The Arminian redoubt 125

10 The ghost of Lucas 141

11 Little Naples on Langebrug 147

12 Innocence Slain 159

13 Two noble young painters of Leiden 179

14 The first heretic in the art of painting 205

15 Eyes shut 225

Epilogue 245

Notes 251

Illustration credits 258

Bibliography 263

Index of names 269

Acknowledgements 275

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