The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon)

Description

"Of those writing spy novels today, Daniel Silva is quite simply the best."
-The Kansas City Star

"The perfect book for fans of well-crafted thrillers ... the kind of page- turner that captures the reader from the opening chapter and doesn't let go."
-The Associated Press

Gabriel Allon, master art restorer and assassin, returns in a spellbinding new novel from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author.

Over the course of a brilliant career, Daniel Silva has established himself as "the gold standard" of thriller writers (Dallas Morning News) who "has hit upon the perfect formula to keep espionage-friendly fans' fingers glued to his books, turning pages in nearly breathless anticipation" (BookPage). But now, having reached "the pinnacle of world-class spy thriller writing" (The Denver Post), Silva has produced his most extraordinary novel to date-a tale of greed, passion, and murder spanning more than half a century, centered on an object of haunting beauty.

Two families, one terrible secret, and a painting to die for ...

Determined to sever his ties with the Office, Gabriel Allon has retreated to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall with his beautiful Venetian-born wife Chiara. But once again his seclusion is interrupted by a visitor from his tangled past: the endearingly eccentric London art dealer, Julian Isherwood. As usual, Isherwood has a problem. And it is one only Gabriel can solve.

In the ancient English city of Glastonbury, an art restorer has been brutally murdered and a long-lost portrait by Rembrandt mysteriously stolen. Despite his reluctance, Gabriel is persuaded to use his unique skills to search for the painting and those responsible for the crime. But as he painstakingly follows a trail of clues leading from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires and, finally, to a villa on the graceful shores of Lake Geneva, Gabriel discovers there are deadly secrets connected to the painting. And evil men behind them.

Before he is done, Gabriel will once again be drawn into a world he thought he had left behind forever, and will come face to face with a remarkable cast of characters: a glamorous London journalist who is determined to undo the worst mistake of her career, an elusive master art thief who is burdened by a conscience, and a powerful Swiss billionaire who is known for his good deeds but may just be behind one of the greatest threats facing the world.

Filled with remarkable twists and turns of plot, and told with seductive prose, The Rembrandt Affair is more than just summer entertainment of the highest order. It is a timely reminder that there are men in the world who will do anything for money.

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Customer Reviews

Priced Too High
I have enjoyed Silva;s books but don't put them in a class with books like Ken Folletts, Edward Rutherfurd, or say Wm Martin where the price is not even a consideration. If Follett were to publish a third book after World Without End I would buy it the first for my Kindle regardless of the price because I just could not wait for the price to come down as it always does.

With a book by an author like Silva I can and will wait for the indle price to be $9.99 suffering not at all!

2010-07-29 | 200 books per year (Gladstone OR) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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A NAIL-BITING THRILL!
This is a nail-biting thrill, philosophical thought, well-drawn, compelling characters, fabulous settings, holocaust history sensitively presented, and an extremely clever plot! The plot follows the search for a lost Rembrandt portrait, a masterpiece that has a history bloodshed. Former Israeli Secret Security Agent, Gabriel Allon, is now living with his wife in Cornwall and trying to enjoy retirement....but....on with the story.
It is just so exciting!

Others I will share, RETRIBUTION, CRACKED HEARTS, EXPLOSION IN PARIS, 7th VICTIM...

2010-07-29 | AE (USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Gelati's Scoop
I have had a nice run of finding really good novels to read and post on this summer. The Rembrandt Affair is like holding 480 pages of energy in your hand. It was an awesome read for many reasons. Daniel Silva has crafted another fine piece of work, but as many of his fans have commented on already, you were waiting impatiently for this novel and expected nothing less to be delivered. I was surprised by the size of the novel but he used every page and every word to the reader's advantage.
The Rembrandt Affair starts out simply and then picks up the pace as we think we can see how the plotline is unfolding. Guess again. Silva shifts gears and directions in a way that makes it very hard to put this novel down. My best advice, don't have much to do when you crack this open. This is a piece from the jacket that will give you a little flav of what is contained in pages of the novel: " Before he is done, Gabriel will once again be drawn into a world he thought he had left behind forever, and will come face-to-face with a remarkable cast of characters: a glamorous London journalist who is determined to undo the worst mistake of her career, an elusive master art thief who is burdened by a conscience, and a powerful Swiss billionaire who is known for his good deeds but may just be behind one of the greatest threats facing the world. It is a timely reminder that there are men in the world who will do anything for money."
I think women will do anything for money also, but that may be just my opinion, but I digress. Daniel Silva hits another home run with The Rembrandt Affair. The novel is heavy at 480 pages of fun, but don't take it lightly, this hits the mark and then some .Gabriel is back in the saddle doing what he does best. Silva presents us with another novel that has been crafted with all the right elements and does not feel that he just followed a recipe. Instead this read is fresh, unnerving, and original. Does anybody expect any less from a writer of this caliber? What is your favorite Daniel Silva Novel?
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2010-07-29 | Gelati's Scoop (LEVITTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA, US) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Back to Serious Writing
Dan Silva is an acquaintance -- I am currently annoyed with him, so this review really is objective. The book returns Dan to being a writer, not a thriller/genre novelist, and he manages to blend character and plot wonderfully well. Dan works very hard, taking his work as seriously as if he were operating on a patient or managing a widow's money, and I believe he listened to too many people as he wrote some books lacking the skill he shows in this and other novels. Simply put, a great read - Gabriel Allon, the protagonist, comes back to life as a flesh and blood person and the plot follows his character. Dan, I hope you read this, accept the praise and my simple insight is this -- always, always right about the Holocaust in some fashion, it is your passion and brings out your best. Say hello to Jamie.

2010-07-28 (Chevy Chase, MD USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Daniel Silva is at the top of his game
The Rembrandt Affair is Daniel Silva's most engaging work yet. He manages to wrap one of the Great Masters, the horrors of the Holocaust, and modern day terrorism into a thrilling package. I've found all of Mr. Silva's books to be page turners, but this one grips you from the first chapter and won't let go. Silva has a true talent of storytelling that engages the reader and draws them into the book. Inevitably current events mirror the terrors that Silva describes in his books. I recommend reading the entire Allon series, but it's not necessary to read them in chronological order; Silva gives each book its own identity and its own crisis to conquer.

2010-07-28 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Rembrandt's Ghost

Product Details

• Notes: BUY WITH Faith, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and accommodation to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Working order: New
• ISBN13: 9780451221759

Description

From the USA Today bestselling author of The Lucifer Gospel There is truth in art. But the truth can kill.

Young archaeologist Finn Ryan is laboring for a London auction house when she gets some unlikely luck. Along with the handsome young nobleman Billy Pilgrim, she's inherited a house in Amsterdam, a cargo ship off Borneo South Pacific, and what appears to be a fake Rembrandt.

But the fake hides a real Rembrandt portrait, which in turn hides a clue to a centuries-old mystery. Finn and Billy aren't the only ones who know what is at stake-and what is waiting to be found at the bottom of the South Pacific. Pursued around the globe by ruthless adversaries, Finn and Billy are thrown into the hunt for a forgotten treasure that could change their lives forever-or end their lives in an instant.

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Customer Reviews

Good fast read
I read this book in 2 sittings. It was certainly no literary gem, but it really held my interest. Great story and good characters typical of the great number of books coming out now similar to the DaVinci Code.

2008-12-04 | Riverboy (Wilmington NC) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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more than suspense
I love a good suspense novel, with the "romance" and graphic violence. I was very pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon this book. In addition to an exciting read, I loved the enter weavings of facts within the fiction. I enjoyed the book and finished more informed about history than with a usual suspense/adventure. I immediately purchased 3 more of the series and have enjoyed them equally. I have not read the introduction title, Michaelango's Notebook, based on negative reviews on this website, but having finished the last four, I may go back and give it a try. The ones I have read have certainly been far and away better than the reviews posted for the series beginning.

2008-07-15 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Terrible
The plot was very simplistic, the characters are bland, and there are very few plot twists in this book. This is not what I look for in a suspense novel. The author throws in just about every cliche in order to make the plot work, there are just too many coincidences to make the tale seem plausible, and there is just no depth to the story. Don't waste your time or money on this one.

2008-06-15 (Peoria, IL) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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plane book
This is a good beach read or plane book. Some of it could have been cut out but if it was, the book wouldn't be considered a novel. This is the second book I have read by this author and can't say he is a bad writer, but this is not up to DaVinci levels where a thriller is concerned. Again, good and just short of fast paced. Good enough to read and leave on a park bench for someone else to find.

2008-02-05 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Rembrandt's Ghost (Christopher)
I enjoyed this novel, but found the action a bit slower than Christopher's other works. If I hadn't read Michelangelo's Notebook, I do not know if the character development would have been compelling enough for me to rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. The author does a great job describing settings and historical information, but the secondary characters are not very well fleshed out. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it, but you may want to read other novels by the author first with the character Finn Ryan so you are invested in her welfare when reading this work.

2008-01-17 (Kennesaw, GA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 4

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The Rembrandt Book

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• Notes: BUY WITH Reliance, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and overhaul to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Inure: New
• ISBN13: 9780810943179

Description

With international attention focused on the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt von Rijn’s birth, the world’s leading Rembrandt expert weighs in with a penetrating—and accessible—examination of the Dutch master’s life and art from both the biographical and the art historical perspective.

Rembrandt was an esteemed artist in his own time as well as in the present, yet there is much debate over how many paintings and drawings can really be attributed to him, and popular scholastic opinion varies widely. In his lively text, accompanied by 700 full-color illustrations, Gary Schwartz addresses the central controversies, providing art historians, students, and art lovers with essential new insights to help clarify the mysteries surrounding the great painter.

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Customer Reviews

CARD BOARD BOOK
It is really too bad that Flammarion bought Abrams. A great art book company has been reduced to dust. Now, instead of beautiful cloth bound books, we get card board books that are cheap, cheap looking, don't hold up, and they are ugly to boot.

Nice job, turning a great company over to a European company driven by accountants.

2010-02-08 (San Mateo, CA USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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The Rembrandt Book
Excellent book. I think it is the definitive book on Rembrandt if you're looking for something that covers much of what Rembrandt did.

2008-09-20 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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The best general introduction to Rembrandt
"The Rembrandt Book" is a welcome reprise of Schwartz's now out of print "Rembrandt: His Life, His Paintings." Published to coincide with "Het Rembrandt Jaar" (the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth) this new volume is probably the best general introduction to Rembrandt available in English. Schwartz, an American who has lived in Holland for decades, was a student of the great Leonard Slatkes and has contributed to the academic study of Rembrandt both through his work as a writer and as a publisher. (He runs the Dutch academic press Sdu.) He also knows how to appeal to a general audience: he produces a regular column on cultural matters for one of the Dutch daily papers. "The Rembrandt Book" gives readers all of these sides of Schwartz at once: the scholar, the popularizer, the creative book designer (the book has a wonderfully dynamic layout). Schwartz offers a very accessible and largely narrative approach to Rembrandt, but he does not shy away from connoisseurship issues, and he has the authority and credibility to weigh in on some of the more hotly disputed attributions. Every student of Dutch painting should read this book.

2008-08-15 | Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 5

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rembrandt deserves better
For an artist, the main reason to buy an art book is for the reproductions, not the text. The reproductions in this book are of high quality, but unfortuneately the vast majority are quite small, about the size you would expect for a typical entry in an exhibition catalogue. The exceptions are the wonderful full-page plates that precede each chapter; they really show what this book could have been if the focus had been Rembrandt's art and not the author's text. A further problem with this book is the inclusion of numerous etchings and drawings, intended to show the full scope of Rembrandt's output in a single volume. Its an admirable idea, but Rembrandt's graphic work has already been amply covered in the fine editions from Dover and its inclusion here feels unnecessary and takes valueable space away from the paintings. What Rembrandt really deserves is a large, high-quality book devoted to showing all his paintings with numerous details of each. Something similar to the excellent monographs from Taschen on Leonardo and Michelangelo.

2008-07-18 (antarctica) | Helpful Votes: 22 | Rating: 3

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A core addition
Compiled and written by one of the world's leading experts on the life and work of Rembrandt von Rijn as part of the 400th anniversary of his birth, "The Rembrandt Book" is a 384-page compendium of biography and history of the Dutch master's life and art. Beautifully and visually enhanced with 700 full-color illustrations, "The Rembrandt Book" also provides interested readers with an introduction and analysis of all the various controversies and debates over Rembrandt in terms of just how many paintings and drawings can be accurately and definitively attributed to him. A core addition to personal, community, art school, and academic library Art History reference collections, "The Rembrandt Book" is most especially recommended to the attention of art historians, art students, art enthusiasts, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the colorful life and personal mysteries involving one of Europe's most famous and influential painters.

2007-04-10 (Oregon, WI USA) | Helpful Votes: 17 | Rating: 5

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Rembrandt: The Painter at Work

Product Details

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• Contingency: New
• ISBN13: 9780520258846

Description

Rembrandt's intriguing painting technique stirred the imaginations of art lovers during his lifetime and has done so ever since. In this book, now revised, updated, and with a new foreword by the author, Rembrandt's pictorial intentions and the variety of materials and techniques he applied to create his fascinating effects are unraveled in depth. At the same time, this "archaeology" of Rembrandt's paintings yields information on many other levels and offers a view of Rembrandt's daily practice and artistic considerations while simultaneously providing a more dimensional image of the artist.
Copub: Amsterdam University Press

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Customer Reviews

Great Book For Both Artists and Art Historians
The one thing that I found most fascinating about this book is that it discusses some of the things that you only learn in art class. From very practical things like the process of painting, to more theoretical stuff like how to create space on a flat canvas. I always thought that most of these art theoretical ideas were more of a contemporary thing. But if you read this book you'll see that the author traces many of them all the way back to Rembrandts day. It was a really important step for me to see this because I feel like it validated some of the things I have been taught. I can finally say to myself "Ok, the teacher didn't just pull that out of his butt, it actually has a long history and a firm foundation."

2010-02-12 | Actually Thomas Cleveland | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Best research book on an old master I've ever seen
Superb scholarship and careful research make this one of my all time favourite art books. I bought this book years ago as a first edition printing and it's remained one of my favourites ever since.

If every art historian was this meticulous the bulk of the old masters secrets would be open for all. So many art books that critque great artists are flawed and obviously written by people who don't paint. They describe the obvious or miss important details that a real artist would look for. So when you get such a high standard of scholarship and research on a subject from an actual painter, the results are vastly superior to anything else on the market. And when the subject is Rembrandt, it's a book worth having if you love art.

This is a scholars review of a subject he genuinely does understand.

Worth every penny and highly recommended for any art lover, historian or classical painter.

2009-11-11 (Australia) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Finding out more about Rembrandt
I was born and raised in Amsterdam and have been familiar with the works of Rembrandt. This book gave me a very new and fresh insight on the way Rembrandt approached his works and I could vividly picture the Dutch artist painting in his atelier. It was fascinating to read about the research that has been done on all the art produced by Rembrandt and the conclusions that became apparent, dispelling various myths. For instance, I was surprised to find out that there was a separate craft that dealt with "ready-made" wood panels and canvases. As a student in painting, this book has given me invaluable insight into the way Rembrandt worked. Mr. van de Wetering has a very engaging and interesting writing style and his information is more than worthwhile for anyone with an interest in art.

2009-11-08 (Chattanooga, TN) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Great book for Rembrandt-nerds
A great, well illustrated and rich work, applying all the newest research and technology in the quest to reveal the working methods and workshop practice of Rembrandt. Well written, the book takes you on a journey through all the minute details of Rembrandts artworks, as well as other artists of his time. Mind you, this is not a how-to-paint-like type of book, but a review of a scientific research program concerning the paintings of Rembrandt. A book for artists, art historians and plain nerds.

2009-06-21 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Learning from Rembrant
This is a monumental work. It's an engaging read that lays out the circumstances under which the great Rembrandt worked in regards to studio techniques as well as unraveling how Rembrandt was able to create the effects of his late work, which are still without equal. It can be a little technical and uneven in its narrative, but a wonderful book that I keep rereading and learning more and more.

2009-05-24 (Cape Cod) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Rembrandt's Eyes

Description

For Rembrandt, as for Shakespeare, all the world was indeed a stage, and he knew in exhaustive detail the tactics of its performance: the strutting and mincing, the wardrobe and face-paint, the full repertoire and gesture and gimace, the flutter of hands and the roll of the eyes, the belly-laugh and the half-stifled sob. He knew what it looked like to seduce, to intimidate, to wheedle and to console; to strike a pose or preach a sermon, to shake a fist or uncover a breast; and how to sin and how to atone. No artist had ever been so fascinated by the fashioning of personae, beginning with his own. No painter ever looked with such unsparing intelligence or such bottomless compassion at our entrances and our exits and the whole rowdy show in between. More than three centuries after his death, Rembrandt remains the most deeply loved of the great masters of painting, his face so familiar to us from the self-portraits painted at every stage in his life, yet still so mysterious. Like Shakespeare, the facts of his life are hard to come by: the Leiden miller's son who briefly found fame in Amsterdam, whose genius was fitully recognized by his contemporaries, who fell into bankruptcy and died in poverty. So there is probably no painter around whose life more legends have grown up, nor to whom more unlikely pictures have been attributed (a process now undergoing rigorous reversal). "Rembrandt's Eyes", about which Simon Schama has been thinking for over 20 years, shows that the true biography of Rembrandt is to be discovered in his pictures. Through a succession of brilliant descriptions and interpretations of Rembrandt's paintings threaded into this narrative, he allows us to see Rembrandt's life clearly, and to think about it freshly. But this book moves far beyond the bounds of conventional biography or art history. With imaginative sympathy, and based on his profound knowledge of Holland and the Dutch in the 17th century, Schama conjures the world in which Rembrandt moved - its sounds, smells and tastes as well as its politics - and the influences on him of the wars of the Protestant United Provinces against Spain, of the extreme Calvinism of his native Leiden, of the demands of patrons and the ambitions of contemporaries. He shows us the central importance of Rembrandt's beloved wife Saskia and, after her death (Rembrandt was later forced to sell her grave, so complete was his ruin), of his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels. Above all, he demonstrates the profound effect on Rembrandt of the leading master of the immediately preceding generation, the great Catholic, Antwerp painter Peter Paul Rubens, "the prince of painters and the painter of princes" with whom Rembrandt was obsessed for the first part of his life, and against whose biography Schama sets Rembrandt's in illuminating counterpoint.

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The great 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn left us so many arresting self-portraits, painted at every stage in his eventful life, that his distinctive face and bearing are a familiar part of the 20th-century cultural landscape, a recognizable presence in galleries across Europe and North America. Nonetheless, the artist himself remains an enigma. Rembrandt was a notoriously difficult man and an inveterate risk taker in life and art: his aspirations to a grandiose Amsterdam lifestyle in the heyday of his popularity as a painter of portraits and large-scale historical works bankrupted him, and he died in relative poverty. His personal effects and treasured collection of paintings and natural rarities were sold off and dispersed, leaving the historian with a tantalizingly scant body of fragmentary records around which to build a convincing biography.

In Rembrandt's Eyes, Simon Schama--the leading historical craftsman of our era, with a career-long commitment to Dutch history--succeeds with consummate skill in bringing the heroic painter of such masterpieces as The Night Watch and Portrait of Jan Six vividly to life. Returning to the bustling Dutch world with which he first made his reputation in the bestselling Embarrassment of Riches (1987), Schama re-creates Rembrandt's life and times with all the verve and panache of a historical novelist--while never for an instant losing his scrupulous grip on recorded fact and detail. The telling surviving fragments of archival information about Rembrandt's personal and professional history are skillfully embedded in a rich, dense tapestry of the commercial whirl and political hurly-burly of the 17th-century Low Countries--a divided territory, split between the Catholic and Protestant faiths and the contested powers of the Spanish Hapsburgs and the Dutch Republic--with the tentacles of the tale reaching into the most unexpected shadowy corners of European love and war, aspiration and intrigue.

Rembrandt's Eyes is, in fact, two biographies for the price of one. From the outset, Schama contrasts the life of Rembrandt with that of his older, equally talented countryman Peter Paul Rubens, whose meteoric rise and sustained success as a society painter forms a revealing contrast with Rembrandt's unhappier relationship with fame and fortune. The comparison is a telling one. Where Rubens furnishes the wealthy and powerful with glorious reflections of, and visual foils for, their social and political aspirations and glory, Rembrandt can never resist testing the envelope of taste and stylistic acceptability. His challenge to his clients to embrace the shock of his painterly experiments with technique, texture, and composition ultimately produced his downfall. The Amsterdam town council took down his The Oath-swearing of Claudius Civilis, rolled it up, and returned his masterpiece to him to be cut down in an attempt to sell it to a suitable buyer.

This is a gorgeous book to own, too. Rembrandt's Eyes is printed on heavy, high-gloss paper and lavishly illustrated throughout in full color. The double-page color spreads of the most memorable of Rembrandt's works will take readers' breath away. But above all, this is narrative history at its very best, a page-turner and an adventure story that will make the reader laugh and cry by turns in the time-honored tradition of masterly writing. --Lisa Jardine

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Customer Reviews

Rembrandt's Eyes
Simon Schama is a true gift to the historian and art lover alike. His masterful prose, detailed yet captivating storytelling are unrivaled. He has a very pleasant bias in favor of intellect and, as he sees it, truth. I never tire of him and wish he were more in evidence as a commentator in other media, including TV.

2010-04-07 (Spring City, UT, USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Wonderful book on the times and art of Rembrandt
I'm going to be brief here. First, my in-depth knowledge of the Dutch Masters is limited, so I will not comment on the veracity of Mr. Schama's information on this. However, the book was very easy to read, even for a book of such depth (and pages!) I actually found the chapters on Peter Paul Rubens to be the most fascinating. Contrasting Rubens and Rembrandt on opposite sides of the religious divide of the Lowlands was very interesting and gives us great insight on an era mostly forgotten by modern people.

I am more an historian than artist, so at times his commentary (while obviously based on a great love of art) on the paintings of Rembrandt went on a bit much for me, but I certainly can see where a true art historian would love these passages.

Overall it is a wonderfully fascinating book that reveals so much about the life and times not only of Rembrandt, but of Rubens, Constantine Huygens, and the triumphal and sad history of the Revolt of the Netherlands.

2010-02-10 (Mt. Vernon, IL United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Five Star Perfection
There is no better writer about art or art history than Simon Schama. He helps me see things and then I think "Of course, why didn't I think of that" He has a way of making obscure things clear. All of his books are first rate.

2009-05-11 (Edmonton) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Excellent book about Rembrandt and his times
Being Dutch, I remember as a kid how my teacher was mesmerizing about how wonderful it would be to have a big enough telescope to catch all the emitted light from long ago and to be able to see Rembrandt paint. I did not know why then, but now I do agree. How wonderful it would have been had he only lived 300 years more to light up all the museums in the world!
This book is about, to my opinion, the best painter of mankind, his life and work. It is also a dual biography about Rubens, since he was so important for Rembrandt.
The book works nicely chronological and winds its way through the younger years of Rembrandt til his last years. In the mean time we also learn a lot about not only his life in Leiden and Amsterdam, but also about the history of Holland of the 17th century. It is absolutely great to learn about for instance the Night Watch, for whom it was painted, who the people are on it, why it was so revolutionary and still the most stunning 17th century painting.
I always wanted to know, as far as recorded history allows us, about the background of his paintings; who ordered it, did they and Rembrandt like it themselves? And most of all: analysis of the paintings themselves: what 'effects' are used, and how? This book goes into wide details of this all without getting repetitive or boring.
Rembrandt is unique among all painters in his combination of talent and 'raffinement'. He could do anything: super precise works, impressionistic style where the paint itself was the 3d effect, portraits, group portraits, history paintings, landscapes, the best etches off all time. His touch and well-aimed strokes immediately got to the essence. His works under scrutiny come out even more unsurpassable and amazing. It is true that none of his students ever came close to his talent, and some of them tried for the rest of their life to master just some aspect of his art (for instance the light effects) while Rembrandt moved on to a more 'rough' style, although it was justly called in this book deceivingly easy to imitate, and of course, 'rough' here does not mean carelessly painted.
Basically he is the first (and best) impressionist in the history of painting.
I have been at the Rijksmuseum many times, and it does not matter which work you look at: Jeremia, his mother reading, the Jewish Bride, his hypnotisingly beautiful self portrait at a young age, it just shows that this is a once in a mankind kind of thing. Rembrandt has shown us once and for all what the art of painting can do, how it can lift our lives by trying so dramatically to imitate it. Indeed looking at his work, it almost seems that his paintings are triumphant over reality.
This book is a great read and the many colour pictures of his work are, needless to say, a pleasure to look at.
Only minus is, that Schama to my opinion is a little too modest about Rembrandt's genius.

2007-07-12 (Husavik Iceland) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Returning to Rembrandt's Eyes: An Appreciation
One of the pleasures of reading books from your own library is that they are always there for return visits. Reading Hockney's 'Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters' stimulated this reader to probe more deeply into some of the venerated painters. Simon Schama's fine book REMBRANDT'S EYES is like an old friend, an excellent resource book for facts about Netherlands painting, social and political history that so affected the works of the two featured painters Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens, a page-turner novel, and a catalogue of brilliant reproductions of paintings. This book satisfies - even more the second time around!

A hefty book at over 750 pages, there is not a page that Schama does not use his charming style of writing to slowly inform. We learn about the atmosphere into which Rembrandt was born, follow his works from the earliest examples through his entire career, encounter his passion for elegance and his fall into poverty, and understand his envy of the creatively and socially successful Rubens. Not a book of gossip, this, but instead a biography well documented in a fine bibliography (no mean feat for a history of a great man without much written contemporary documentation!) and a survey of illustrations that augment the story as well as any yet written.

For those who hunger for knowledge about a famous painter yet who deign to wade through the usual dry treatise format, welcome to the class with Schama. This is a book that will endure (first printed in 1999 and now available in paperback) because of the stature of the subject AND the stature of the author. Hats off to Simon Schama who so entertainingly and successfully takes us behind Rembrandt's eyes to see his work as few have shown it. Grady Harp, December 06

2006-12-15 (Los Angeles, CA United States) | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5

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Rembrandt Drawings: 116 Masterpieces in Original Color

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9780486461496
• Contingency: USED - Very Good
• Notes: BUY WITH Assurance, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and advice to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Description

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Customer Reviews

Eye glance of a master
Rembrandt Drawings is a superb collection of drawings by the great Dutch master. They are intimate sketches which depict a glance. They are completely modern, predating the technique of the French modernists, and catch that first critical moment when the essential of a scene is grasped. Above all there is the instant seizure of a moment of humanity, a fleeting expression, query, puzzlement, wonder, but, strangely not a smile.
Three of the drawings belong to the more than 90 self portraits in which Rembrandt traced his biography. One is an image of the artist at the age of 23 and it is informative to compare with the oil painting which followed, a display of genius in handling light and shadow. But for all that, the naive sketch catches a mood that no longer exists in the magnificent painting.
The book is a treasure to browse and to ponder the profound humanity it contains. Its simplicity is an invitation to take a pencil and trace the same and similar lines, to explore the creative mind of one of the greatest artists who ever lived.

2009-02-10 (Bangkok) | Helpful Votes: 15 | Rating: 5

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Finally, In Color
Rembrandt's drawings, though monochromatic, deserve to be in color. The variations in his pen lines and washes are part of their greatness, and I've waited for decades to see a book like this. I'm surprised it's in hardcover (I have about a thousand Dover books, all paperbacks) so it costs a few extra dollars, and it's no surprise that at least most of the reproductions are generations removed from the originals, but I'm hardly complaining. Up till now I haven't found a complete color collection of his drawings, and he is one of history's greatest (and most subtle) draftsmen, so this is a gift to the world. If we ever get a book like this reproduced from the originals, it will probably cost over $100.
And regarding the artwork, I'll quote my elder colleague and master draftsman, Don Lagerberg: "The older I get, the better Rembrandt gets."

2007-12-04 | marshallart.com (Laguna Niguel, CA United States) | Helpful Votes: 20 | Rating: 4

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