Lives of Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (c.1606-1669) was the most talked-about painter of the 17th century--and quite possibly of the following centuries too. His prodigious talent, extraordinary emotional truth, and reckless disregard of artistic convention astonished, delighted, and often dismayed his contemporaries; and the full gamut of these reactions is revealed in the three early biographies published here for the first time in their entirety in English. Sandrart, a German painter and writer on painting, actually knew Rembrandt in Amsterdam; Baldinucci, an artist contemporary of Rembrandt, was one of the greatest early connoisseurs of prints; and Arnold Houbraken, who studied under some of Rembrandt's pupils, wrote the earliest major biographical account of the artists of Holland. These extraordinary documents give a vivid picture of Rembrandt's shattering impact on the art world of his time--not only as a painter, but also as a supremely successful manipulator of the market, a dangerous example to the young, and an unavoidable challenge to any sense of decorum and rulegiving. Rooted firmly in the 17th-century realities of Rembrandt's life, they bring into sharper focus the qualities of originality and psychological acuity that remain Rembrandt's trademark to this day. The introduction by Charles Ford situates these biographies in the context of 17th-century appreciation of art, and the trajectory of Rembrandt's career.