Rembrandt's extraordinary paintings of female nudes - Andromeda, Susanna, Diana and Her Nymphs, Danae, Bathsheba - as well as his etchings of nude women, have fascinated many generations of art lovers and art historians, but they have also elicited vehement criticism. They were considered against-the-grain, anti-classical, even ugly and unpleasant. However, Rembrandt chose conventional subjects, keeping close to time-honored pictorial schemes, and was well aware of the high prestige accorded to the depiction of the naked female body. Why, then, do these works deviate so radically from the depictions of nude women by other artists? To answer this question the author examines Rembrandt's paintings and etchings against the foil of established pictorial traditions in the Netherlands as well as Italy. Exploring Rembrandt's intense dialogue with the works of predecessors and peers, the author demonstrates that, more than any other artist, it was Rembrandt's purpose to incite the greatest possible empathy in the viewer. This had far-reaching consequences for the moral and erotic implications of the subjects Rembrandt chose to depict. In this richly illustrated study the author presents an innovative approach to Rembrandt's views on the art of painting, his attitude towards antiquity and Italian art of the Renaissance, his sustained rivalry with the works of other artists, his handling of the moral and erotic issues inherent in subjects with female nudes, and the nature of Rembrandt's artistic choices. This title was shortlisted for the Charles Rufus Morey Award of the College Art Association in 2007

About the Author
Eric Jan Sluijter is professor of the History of Renaissance and Early Modern Art at the University of Amsterdam and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

Reviews
"Rembrandt and the Female Nude is the first serious and sustained study of a central problem in the artist's engagement with the antique and Renaissance heritage, as well as the theory of art making as imitation. Eric Jan Sluijter's rich contextualization of some of Rembrandt's most idiosyncratic works makes us see how the artist could have arrived at his uncommonly earthy nudes, and why contemporaries would have found them controversial. But all the fine-grained history does not impede the author's recognition of the visual power of these works, and their resistance to definitive historical explanation." Mariet Westermann - Director and Professor Institute of Fine Arts - New York University|"Sluiijter weet als een van de weinige kunsthistorici technische informatie en gegronde bronnen te combineren met vertellingen die de verbeelding stimuleren en je op een nieuwe manier doen kijken. (..) Rembrandt and the Female Nude leest daarom, hoe wetenschappelijk het boek ook is opgezet, als een trein." Wieteke van Zeil, de Volkskrant|"This book brings us face to face with an artist and an art historian, from whom we may, guiltily want more. It seems greedy to ask, but dare we hope Sluijter might next turn his gaze to some of Rembrandt's other history paintings?" Mia M. Mochizuki - The sixteenth century journal|""This is the kind of book every library should own, the kind of book that every scholar enviously wishes s/he could have written." Larry Silver - Seventeenth Century News|"[Rembrandt and the Female Nude] ... opens a whole new field of scholarly discussion, it augments our knowledge of the theme and it offers genuinely new insights in what was important for Rembrandt as an artist. One cannot ask for much more in a book." Xander van Eck - The Burlington Magazine



Book Information
ISBN 9789053568378
Author Eric Jan Sluijter
Format Paperback
Page Count 448
Imprint Amsterdam University Press
Publisher Amsterdam University Press
Weight(grams) 1974g