Rembrandt

Rembrandt was revered as a genius during his lifetime and has fascinated generations of artists and connoisseurs ever since. Rembrandt's trademark – rough, impasto brushwork, his unique lighting and sensitivity – pointed the way forward, not only for portraiture. This edition presents the grand master of the Golden Age of Dutch painting.

The Magic of Light

Rembrandt's painted oeuvreHe was the most sought-after painter in the prosperous trading city of Amsterdam yet died completely impoverished. Though he never left his homeland, Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn's (1606–1669) work extends far beyond the confines of his personal experience, constituting some of the most effective and multifaceted works in art history, forever engraved on the collective memory – The Night Watch, epitomizing the flowering of Dutch urban culture in the 17th century, or Self-Portrait as Zeuxis, which remains enigmatic to this day.

As an artist of the Dutch Golden Age, Rembrandt's interest was in human passions. Bible scenes such as Bathsheba with King David’s Letter (1654) also highlight the subjects’ vulnerability, going far beyond what had previously been depicted in painting. Rembrandt also left behind a large number of self-portraits – no other artist of the time portrayed himself so frequently, thus documenting his own development from youth to old age.

Following our XXL bestseller, TASCHEN is now releasing this abridged, more compact edition featuring Rembrandt's paintings in stunning reproductions – from Belshazzar's Feast (c. 1635) to his furious late work, this is a chance to experience Rembrandt's painterly oeuvre in a whole new way.

The authorsMarieke de Winkel studied art history and classical archaeology at the University of Amsterdam and history of dress at the Courtauld Institute in London. From 1993 to 2003, she was a research assistant with the Rembrandt Research Project. Her PhD thesis at the University of Amsterdam focused on dress in the works of Rembrandt.Rudie van Leeuwen studied art history at Radboud University in Nijmegen. He obtained his PhD in 2018 on the portrait historié in 16th and 17th-century Dutch painting. Together with Volker Manuth he initiated and worked on the Rembrandt Documents Project (RemDoc.org), where he was centrally involved inter alia in the conception and implementation of the integral search function.Volker Manuth studied art history, philosophy and classical archaeology in Kiel, Bonn, and Berlin. In 1987 he completed his PhD at the Freie Universität Berlin with a thesis on the iconography of Rembrandt’s Old Testament subjects. From 1988 to 1995 he was an assistant and associate Professor at the FU Berlin, and from 1995 to 2003, he held the A. Bader Chair of Northern Renaissance and Baroque Art at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (Canada). Since 2003, he has been Professor of Art History at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.Rembrandt. The Paintings. 45th Ed.Hardcover, 15.6 x 21.7 cm, 1.17 kg, 512 pages