Why did Simon love this book?
I loved this book because of its larger-than-life main character, Rembrandt van Rijn, the Golden Age Dutch painter who took the world by storm with his bravura artworks, like Night Watch. And who better to write about this great artist than the scholar Simon Schama?
I loved the way he brings Rembrandt to life, weaving into his life story the creation of his great works. I felt it was a bit like reading a Shakespeare tragedy as Rembrandt, once rich and famous, gradually descends towards poverty and loneliness as his marriage to Saskia fails and his debts spiral out of control. I loved the extraordinary detail of Schama’s almost forensic account of the creation of the paintings and his sympathy with the great Dutch artist’s genius and life.
2 authors picked Rembrandt's Eyes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
This dazzling, unconventional biography shows us why, more than three centuries after his death, Rembrandt continues to exert such a hold on our imagination. Deeply familiar to us through his enigmatic self-portraits, few facts are known about the Leiden miller's son who tasted brief fame before facing financial ruin (he was even forced to sell his beloved wife Saskia's grave). The true biography of Rembrandt, as Simon Schama demonstrates, is to be discovered in his pictures. Interweaving of seventeenth-century Holland, Schama allows us to see Rembrandt in a completely fresh and original way.