- Paperback: 250 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press; 2nd edition (2 Nov 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226567370
- ISBN-13: 978-0226567372
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 14.3 x 1.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,423,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
There is a popular and romantic myth about Rembrandt and the Jewish people. One of history's greatest artists, we are often told, had a special affinity for Judaism. With so many of Rembrandt's works devoted to stories of the Hebrew Bible, and with his apparent penchant for Jewish themes and the sympathetic portrayal of Jewish faces, it is no wonder that the myth has endured for centuries.
"Rembrandt's Jews" puts this myth to the test as it examines both the legend and the reality of Rembrandt's relationship to Jews and Judaism. In his elegantly written and engrossing tour of Jewish Amsterdam--which begins in 1653 as workers are repairing Rembrandt's Portuguese-Jewish neighbor's house and completely disrupting the artist's life and livelihood--Steven Nadler tells us the stories of the artist's portraits of Jewish sitters, of his mundane and often contentious dealings with his neighbors in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, and of the tolerant setting that city provided for Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews fleeing persecution in other parts of Europe. As Nadler shows, Rembrandt was only one of a number of prominent seventeenth-century Dutch painters and draftsmen who found inspiration in Jewish subjects. Looking at other artists, such as the landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael and Emmanuel de Witte, a celebrated painter of architectural interiors, Nadler is able to build a deep and complex account of the remarkable relationship between Dutch and Jewish cultures in the period, evidenced in the dispassionate, even ordinary ways in which Jews and their religion are represented--far from the demonization and grotesque caricatures, the iconography of the outsider, so often found in depictions of Jews during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Through his close look at paintings, etchings, and drawings; in his discussion of intellectual and social life during the Dutch Golden Age; and even through his own travels in pursuit of his subject, Nadler takes the reader through Jewish Amsterdam then and now--a trip that, under ever-threatening Dutch skies, is full of colorful and eccentric personalities, fiery debates, and magnificent art.
"Rembrandt's Jews" puts this myth to the test as it examines both the legend and the reality of Rembrandt's relationship to Jews and Judaism. In his elegantly written and engrossing tour of Jewish Amsterdam--which begins in 1653 as workers are repairing Rembrandt's Portuguese-Jewish neighbor's house and completely disrupting the artist's life and livelihood--Steven Nadler tells us the stories of the artist's portraits of Jewish sitters, of his mundane and often contentious dealings with his neighbors in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, and of the tolerant setting that city provided for Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews fleeing persecution in other parts of Europe. As Nadler shows, Rembrandt was only one of a number of prominent seventeenth-century Dutch painters and draftsmen who found inspiration in Jewish subjects. Looking at other artists, such as the landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael and Emmanuel de Witte, a celebrated painter of architectural interiors, Nadler is able to build a deep and complex account of the remarkable relationship between Dutch and Jewish cultures in the period, evidenced in the dispassionate, even ordinary ways in which Jews and their religion are represented--far from the demonization and grotesque caricatures, the iconography of the outsider, so often found in depictions of Jews during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Through his close look at paintings, etchings, and drawings; in his discussion of intellectual and social life during the Dutch Golden Age; and even through his own travels in pursuit of his subject, Nadler takes the reader through Jewish Amsterdam then and now--a trip that, under ever-threatening Dutch skies, is full of colorful and eccentric personalities, fiery debates, and magnificent art.
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First Sentence
IT IS THE SUMMER OF 1653, midweek in early August. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
IT IS THE SUMMER OF 1653, midweek in early August. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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7 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Disappointing
23 July 2004
Format:Hardcover
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.
17 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Fascinating story
26 Oct 2003
Format:Hardcover
This engaging and beautifully written book, on one level, tells the story of how the artist Rembrandt van Rijn interacted with his Jewish neighbors, many of whom were clients and/or served as models for his Biblical paintings. So it is in part about his art, but more importantly, it offers an intimate look at Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, and conveys how the Jewish communities there lived and worked and interacted with the larger Christian population.
The book design is lovely, the text charming, and the illustrations quite remarkable. Not too long, not too short; it is just right.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Light Reading
1 Sep 2007
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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