The Upside–Down World

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer turns his eye to the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age

Twenty years ago, Benjamin Moser followed a love affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to make sense of this new place, he threw himself into the Dutch museums. Soon, he found himself unearthing the strange, inspiring and sometimes terrifying stories of the artists who shaped one of the most luminous moments in the history of human creativity, the Dutch Golden Age.

As he explored the hidden world of the Dutch Masters (and one Mistress), Moser met a crowd of fascinating personalities: the stormy Rembrandt, the intimate Ter Borch, the mysterious Vermeer. Through their art, he got to know their country, too: from Pieter Saenredam's translucent churches to Paulus Potter's muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch's cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael's tragic trees. Over the years, Moser found himself on increasingly intimate terms with these centuries-dead artists, and found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions he was. Why do we make art? What is art, anyway - and what is an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does it mean to fail?

The Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. It is a brilliant, colourful and learned book for anyone, whether lifelong scholar or curious tourist, who has ever felt the lure of the Dutch galleries. It shows us art, and artists, as we have never seen them before.

Review

Moser writes with insight and sympathy about his 18 painters and their pictures, many of which are handsomely reproduced in his pages ― The Times

Moser considers individual lives, life in general and the fragility of all biographies. Unknowns make the knowns shine brighter… Moser relishes strange facts and is attuned to the charisma of his subjects… a meditation on belonging, how we strive to adopt a nation through its art, how we fall in love with a place, its past and foreignness… an excellent guide ― Prospect

A personal and stirring guide to the great Dutch painters … The Upside-Down World is an excellent companion to the Dutch galleries: conversational and congenial, essayistic and elevating ― Washington Post

In The Upside-Down World, Benjamin Moser confronts the world through the eyes of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Hals and others. He is an exemplary museumgoer, the kind we should all aspire to be … Here, Moser interweaves personal memoir with observations he has gleaned from years of faithful looking at Dutch paintings ― Wall Street Journal

Benjamin Moser's way of looking is sharp, original, penetrating, generous and nourished by knowledge and study. His book is an essential guide to the Dutch painters, but, more than that, it is an engaging conversation with a well-stocked mind -- Colm Tóibín

Benjamin Moser's fascinating study of Dutch art and artists is more than the sum of its extraordinary parts. Part memoir, part critical and historical analysis, the book also offers a superb commentary - one of the best I've ever read - on what it means to be displaced in a never entirely whole world, and what it means to see between the cracks. I learned so much reading this fine book, and so will you -- Hilton Als

A museum, Benjamin Moser writes, has an aura. It promises improvement, elevation. Walking through galleries of Dutch art was at once calming and exciting; it raised questions, stimulated curiosity, the quantity as well as the quality of the art astonishing him. How did such a small country achieve so much? … Moser’s excitement at what he’s found, along with the desire to know more, lends a particular aura to this book … Richly illustrated, the writing is conversational yet erudite, threaded with autobiographical anecdotes -- Norma Clarke ― Literary Review

In a luminous, splendidly illustrated melding of art history and memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, translator, and essayist Moser pays homage to 17th-century artists whose works he discovered when he first settled in the Netherlands 20 years ago ... He sets artists' lives in the context of violence and upheaval, as well as personal loss, poverty, grief, and longing ... A graceful meditation on art ― Kirkus Reviews

The Upside-Down World sketches out the lives and work of preeminent figures, such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals, alongside those less well known … While many an art historian has delved into the private lives of artists for the purposes of adding colour to the criticism, Moser’s book is a treatise on ambition … asking what catalyses people to write (or make art), and to write (or make art) the way they do -- Oliver Basciano ― ArtReview

The most agreeable of companions in his encompassing yet highly personal tour of the Golden Age of Dutch painting, Benjamin Moser delivers fresh insights that will delight the expert and the casual museum-goer alike, in prose as precise and intimate as a Vermeer - and as luminous -- Jim Holt

About the Author

Benjamin Moser is the author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award. His work bringing Clarice Lispector to international prominence was recognized with Brazil's State Prize for Cultural Diplomacy. His most recent book, Sontag: Her Life, won the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Utrecht, in the central Netherlands.