John Berger, one of the world's most celebrated storytellers and writers on art, tells a personal history of art from the prehistoric paintings of the Chauvet caves to 21st century conceptual artists. Berger presents entirely new ways of thinking about artists both canonized and obscure, from Rembrandt to Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock to Picasso. Throughout, Berger maintains the essential connection between politics, art and the wider study of culture. The result is an illuminating walk through many centuries of visual culture, from one of the contemporary world's most incisive critical voices.

"Rembrandt was the most famous painter of the Dutch Golden Age, and the opportunity to work in his studio attracted young artists for nearly four decades, until the artist's death in 1669. This catalogue explores the workings of Rembrandt's studio in the form of drawings made by the master himself and fifteen of his pupils. Rembrandt and his students would often depict the same subject matter as an exercise and make drawings of the same nude models. In his later years, Rembrandt also made sketching trips outside Amsterdam to create his innovative landscapes of the Dutch countryside. His students followed this example, sometimes depicting the same sites." "Organized chronologically, Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference is a groundbreaking study that presents more than forty works by Rembrandt and related works by his pupils. It explores the scholarship of recent decades that has brought new and more systematic criteria to bear on determining the authenticity of Rembrandt drawings, and defines the styles of his pupils and followers with ever-greater precision. In so doing, this volume demystifies the sometimes-baffling exercise known as connoisseurship and seeks to re-enact the daily practices that Rembrandt used to teach his students and bring them to artistic maturity." "This is an essential book for anyone interested in the Dutch Golden Age or the lives and careers of Rembrandt and the artists in his immediate circle. A major exhibition of these drawings will be on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from December 8, 2009, to February 28, 2010." --Book Jacket.

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.

"This book owes its genesis to a series of conferences held in 2009, 2011, and 2013 at Queen's University's Bader International Study Centre at Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, UK." (Acknowledgements).

Drawing on and furthering the enterprise of Rembrandt scholars, who have been reinterpreting the artist and his work over the past 25 years, Alpers presents new considerations about Rembrandt's handling of paint, his theatrical approach to his models, his use of his studio as an environment under his control, and his relationship to those who bought his work. Her study is timely in light of recent research showing that well-known works attributed to Rembrandt are by followers instead. Alpers developed her text from a lecture series, and the prose gains readability by retaining some of the flavor of a talk. Still, this will find its audience chiefly among scholars and specialists in the field. Kathryn W. Finkelstein, M. Ln., Cincinnati Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. -- From Library Journal.

Catalog of an exhibition held at the Morgan Library & Museum, June 3-September 18, 2016.

"In 1634 the up-and-coming painting talent Rembrandt van Rijn wed the love of this life in Friesland: Saskia Uylenburgh, the daughter of a councillor at the Court of Friesland. The story of their marriage is also that of seventeenth-century marriages in general, from courtship to drawing up a will. How did such a stylish wedding come about, and how did life proceed afterwards, when love and suffering were shared? Using evocative paintings, etchings, documents and precious wedding gifts, this book shows us the world of Friesland's most famous bride and groom ever--and that marriage vows back then actually appear to differ little from those of today."--from back cover