Paul C. Gutjahr
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199740420
- eISBN:
- 9780199894703
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199740420.003.0034
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
Chapter thirty-four examines Hodge as he establishes himself as the leading professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. Through his teaching, administration, and hospitality of famous guests such as ...
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Chapter thirty-four examines Hodge as he establishes himself as the leading professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. Through his teaching, administration, and hospitality of famous guests such as William Cunningham of Scotland, Hodge shows himself to be the Seminary’s marquee figure.Less
Chapter thirty-four examines Hodge as he establishes himself as the leading professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. Through his teaching, administration, and hospitality of famous guests such as William Cunningham of Scotland, Hodge shows himself to be the Seminary’s marquee figure.
Berys Gaut
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199263219
- eISBN:
- 9780191718854
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263219.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter briefly outlines the history of the debate about art and ethics since Plato, both in popular culture and in the literary and philosophical traditions. It identifies as recurrent ...
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This chapter briefly outlines the history of the debate about art and ethics since Plato, both in popular culture and in the literary and philosophical traditions. It identifies as recurrent positions in the debate — humanism, aestheticism, and the view of art as transgression. It also distinguishes five different issues about art and ethics: the causal effects of art, public policy, conceptual, intrinsic, and structural symmetry issues. The intrinsic issue will be the one that is mainly discussed in the book. It concludes with a detailed example of ethical criticism, discussing Rembrandt's and Willem Drost's depictions of Bathsheba.Less
This chapter briefly outlines the history of the debate about art and ethics since Plato, both in popular culture and in the literary and philosophical traditions. It identifies as recurrent positions in the debate — humanism, aestheticism, and the view of art as transgression. It also distinguishes five different issues about art and ethics: the causal effects of art, public policy, conceptual, intrinsic, and structural symmetry issues. The intrinsic issue will be the one that is mainly discussed in the book. It concludes with a detailed example of ethical criticism, discussing Rembrandt's and Willem Drost's depictions of Bathsheba.
Harry Berger Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225569
- eISBN:
- 9780823240937
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823225569.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
The most famous and certainly the weirdest of all shooter portraits, the one that most fully tests the limits of disaggregation, was not originally known as The Night Watch. It acquired that title in ...
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The most famous and certainly the weirdest of all shooter portraits, the one that most fully tests the limits of disaggregation, was not originally known as The Night Watch. It acquired that title in the late eighteenth century, partly because the picture had darkened and partly because by then night patrol was virtually the only function the militias still performed. It contains a full yard-sale display of costumes and props like those in Rembrandt's storeroom, as well as antique clothes and armor that belonged to the identified sitters. These two passages are the source of the myth that The Night Watch was considered a failure when it first appeared and that it was rejected by those who paid and sat for it. Modern commentators have routinely, though at times nervously, mentioned and dismissed the story.Less
The most famous and certainly the weirdest of all shooter portraits, the one that most fully tests the limits of disaggregation, was not originally known as The Night Watch. It acquired that title in the late eighteenth century, partly because the picture had darkened and partly because by then night patrol was virtually the only function the militias still performed. It contains a full yard-sale display of costumes and props like those in Rembrandt's storeroom, as well as antique clothes and armor that belonged to the identified sitters. These two passages are the source of the myth that The Night Watch was considered a failure when it first appeared and that it was rejected by those who paid and sat for it. Modern commentators have routinely, though at times nervously, mentioned and dismissed the story.
Harry Berger Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225569
- eISBN:
- 9780823240937
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823225569.003.0014
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Because the proponents of the approaches all premise or assume that unity was a desideratum, either they ignore the disruptive features of the painting or else they allegorize them away. They ...
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Because the proponents of the approaches all premise or assume that unity was a desideratum, either they ignore the disruptive features of the painting or else they allegorize them away. They acknowledge the problems Rembrandt's compositional choices place in the way of the demands and conventions of the portrait function. The militia guilds were called not only Schutters but also Kloveniers, because in 1522 the original fourteenth-century weapon, the crossbow, was replaced by a primitive firearm called a klover. The most important function of the company may be to dine together.Less
Because the proponents of the approaches all premise or assume that unity was a desideratum, either they ignore the disruptive features of the painting or else they allegorize them away. They acknowledge the problems Rembrandt's compositional choices place in the way of the demands and conventions of the portrait function. The militia guilds were called not only Schutters but also Kloveniers, because in 1522 the original fourteenth-century weapon, the crossbow, was replaced by a primitive firearm called a klover. The most important function of the company may be to dine together.
Harry Berger Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225569
- eISBN:
- 9780823240937
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823225569.003.0016
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Captain Cocq performs his pose with authority, as if he knows it derives both from “the tradition of Amsterdam guard Captains” and from a predominantly aristocratic tradition of full-length ...
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Captain Cocq performs his pose with authority, as if he knows it derives both from “the tradition of Amsterdam guard Captains” and from a predominantly aristocratic tradition of full-length individual portraits. But his performance only makes his relation to what goes on around and behind him more peculiar. According to Norbert Schneider, the confusion is what makes the painting special because it enables The Night Watch “to break down boundaries between the portrait and the history painting.” He argues that Rembrandt's purpose is to “impart nobility to his bourgeois clientele by showing them as historical agents, a role hitherto considered above their station.” In spite of his reliance on the clichés of class conflict, he remains sensitive to the complexity of what he describes.Less
Captain Cocq performs his pose with authority, as if he knows it derives both from “the tradition of Amsterdam guard Captains” and from a predominantly aristocratic tradition of full-length individual portraits. But his performance only makes his relation to what goes on around and behind him more peculiar. According to Norbert Schneider, the confusion is what makes the painting special because it enables The Night Watch “to break down boundaries between the portrait and the history painting.” He argues that Rembrandt's purpose is to “impart nobility to his bourgeois clientele by showing them as historical agents, a role hitherto considered above their station.” In spite of his reliance on the clichés of class conflict, he remains sensitive to the complexity of what he describes.
Harry Berger Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225569
- eISBN:
- 9780823240937
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823225569.003.0020
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Riegl praises Rembrandt for the discipline with which he maintains the pattern of subordination that foregrounds the two officers and isolates them from the remainder of the company. Several ...
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Riegl praises Rembrandt for the discipline with which he maintains the pattern of subordination that foregrounds the two officers and isolates them from the remainder of the company. Several commentators have noted resemblances between Cocq and the figure of Cornelis Claesz. Presumably the sitters collaborate with the painter in setting the visual scene, and presumably the painting reflects their efforts to control the final product, including, no doubt, requests for alteration of details that do not suit sitters. But although the painting itself may represent sitters' efforts to control it, there are indications that it challenges such efforts. Rembrandt's competition with the sitters brings out theirs with each other.Less
Riegl praises Rembrandt for the discipline with which he maintains the pattern of subordination that foregrounds the two officers and isolates them from the remainder of the company. Several commentators have noted resemblances between Cocq and the figure of Cornelis Claesz. Presumably the sitters collaborate with the painter in setting the visual scene, and presumably the painting reflects their efforts to control the final product, including, no doubt, requests for alteration of details that do not suit sitters. But although the painting itself may represent sitters' efforts to control it, there are indications that it challenges such efforts. Rembrandt's competition with the sitters brings out theirs with each other.
Ann Jefferson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199270842
- eISBN:
- 9780191710292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270842.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Against the grain of the many autobiographically based readings of Genet, this chapter presents his prose writing (esp. Miracle de la rose, Notre-Dame-des Fleurs, Journal du voleur) as a series of ...
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Against the grain of the many autobiographically based readings of Genet, this chapter presents his prose writing (esp. Miracle de la rose, Notre-Dame-des Fleurs, Journal du voleur) as a series of biographical celebrations of his unlikely subjects. Genet adopts the anachronistic mode of courtly literature in order to transform his largely abject figures into glorious heroes by means of a self-consciously extravagant poetic language. The result highlights the gap between the biographical subjects portrayed and the literary medium, thus foregrounding the creative intervention of the writer. This flaunting of literariness is used by Genet as a means of disengaging his own literary project from any social or conventional consensus about literature. This is further supported by the frequent equation of homosexual love with artistic creation in his work, and is finally endorsed in his critical writings about artists such as Rembrandt and Giacometti whose skills are defined as being ultimately those of biographical portraiture.Less
Against the grain of the many autobiographically based readings of Genet, this chapter presents his prose writing (esp. Miracle de la rose, Notre-Dame-des Fleurs, Journal du voleur) as a series of biographical celebrations of his unlikely subjects. Genet adopts the anachronistic mode of courtly literature in order to transform his largely abject figures into glorious heroes by means of a self-consciously extravagant poetic language. The result highlights the gap between the biographical subjects portrayed and the literary medium, thus foregrounding the creative intervention of the writer. This flaunting of literariness is used by Genet as a means of disengaging his own literary project from any social or conventional consensus about literature. This is further supported by the frequent equation of homosexual love with artistic creation in his work, and is finally endorsed in his critical writings about artists such as Rembrandt and Giacometti whose skills are defined as being ultimately those of biographical portraiture.
Paul C. Gutjahr
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199740420
- eISBN:
- 9780199894703
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199740420.003.0020
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History
Chapter twenty is an account of how Hodge returned from Europe a changed man. Full of confidence and new ideas, Hodge gave himself to educational reform and missions in the years immediately after ...
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Chapter twenty is an account of how Hodge returned from Europe a changed man. Full of confidence and new ideas, Hodge gave himself to educational reform and missions in the years immediately after his return. He had already been involved in missions through Princeton Seminary’s Society of Inquiry, and by the 1840s he was favoring the establishment of Presbyterian parochial schools.Less
Chapter twenty is an account of how Hodge returned from Europe a changed man. Full of confidence and new ideas, Hodge gave himself to educational reform and missions in the years immediately after his return. He had already been involved in missions through Princeton Seminary’s Society of Inquiry, and by the 1840s he was favoring the establishment of Presbyterian parochial schools.
Remo Bodei
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823264421
- eISBN:
- 9780823266593
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823264421.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
From prehistoric stone tools to machines to computers, things have traveled a long road along with human beings. Changing with the times, places, and methods of production, coming from diverse ...
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From prehistoric stone tools to machines to computers, things have traveled a long road along with human beings. Changing with the times, places, and methods of production, coming from diverse histories, enveloped in multiple layers of meaning, things embody ideas, emotions, and symbols of which we are often unaware. Things are the repositories of ideas, emotions, and symbols whose meaning we often do not understand. The more we are able to recover objects in their wealth of meanings and to integrate them into our mental and emotional horizons, the broader and deeper our world becomes. Philosophy and art can show us the way. In an unexpected but coherent journey that includes the visions of classic philosophers from Aristotle to Husserl and from Hegel to Heidegger along with the analysis of works of art, this book addresses issues such as fetishism, the memory of things, the emergence of department stores, consumerism, nostalgia for the past, the self-portraits of Rembrandt, and the still lifes of the Netherlandish painters of the seventeenth century.Less
From prehistoric stone tools to machines to computers, things have traveled a long road along with human beings. Changing with the times, places, and methods of production, coming from diverse histories, enveloped in multiple layers of meaning, things embody ideas, emotions, and symbols of which we are often unaware. Things are the repositories of ideas, emotions, and symbols whose meaning we often do not understand. The more we are able to recover objects in their wealth of meanings and to integrate them into our mental and emotional horizons, the broader and deeper our world becomes. Philosophy and art can show us the way. In an unexpected but coherent journey that includes the visions of classic philosophers from Aristotle to Husserl and from Hegel to Heidegger along with the analysis of works of art, this book addresses issues such as fetishism, the memory of things, the emergence of department stores, consumerism, nostalgia for the past, the self-portraits of Rembrandt, and the still lifes of the Netherlandish painters of the seventeenth century.
Alva Noë
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780190928216
- eISBN:
- 9780197601136
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190928216.003.0025
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter reflects on the exhibition “Late Rembrandt” that ran in 2015 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which was the first exhibition ever to focus on the adventurous and experimental painting of ...
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This chapter reflects on the exhibition “Late Rembrandt” that ran in 2015 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which was the first exhibition ever to focus on the adventurous and experimental painting of the last eighteen years of Rembrandt's life. Many of the figures portrayed by Rembrandt seem to have opaque and unseeing eyes. As Rembrandt's near contemporary René Descartes argued, the soul is not present in the body the way a pilot is present in a vessel. The connection is tighter than that. And Rembrandt's pictures offer a kind of exhibition of this idea—one can encounter the manifest spirit of a living person in a picture even when there is no seeing “into” them, even when we are confined, as we are, to seeing them from the “outside.” Meanwhile, there are a group of portraits by Rembrandt that are in an entirely different key—his self-portraits. In these paintings, almost miraculously, there is no question of lifeless or unseeing eyes. The differences between the blank eyes one sees in almost every figure painting of Rembrandt in this exhibition and the animate gaze of the self-portraits is not so much a difference in what the viewer actually sees but a difference in the acts these paintings perform.Less
This chapter reflects on the exhibition “Late Rembrandt” that ran in 2015 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which was the first exhibition ever to focus on the adventurous and experimental painting of the last eighteen years of Rembrandt's life. Many of the figures portrayed by Rembrandt seem to have opaque and unseeing eyes. As Rembrandt's near contemporary René Descartes argued, the soul is not present in the body the way a pilot is present in a vessel. The connection is tighter than that. And Rembrandt's pictures offer a kind of exhibition of this idea—one can encounter the manifest spirit of a living person in a picture even when there is no seeing “into” them, even when we are confined, as we are, to seeing them from the “outside.” Meanwhile, there are a group of portraits by Rembrandt that are in an entirely different key—his self-portraits. In these paintings, almost miraculously, there is no question of lifeless or unseeing eyes. The differences between the blank eyes one sees in almost every figure painting of Rembrandt in this exhibition and the animate gaze of the self-portraits is not so much a difference in what the viewer actually sees but a difference in the acts these paintings perform.
Harry Berger
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225569
- eISBN:
- 9780823240937
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823225569.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
A study of the theory and practice of seventeenth-century Dutch group portraits, this book offers an account of the genre's comic and ironic features, which it treats as comments on the social ...
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A study of the theory and practice of seventeenth-century Dutch group portraits, this book offers an account of the genre's comic and ironic features, which it treats as comments on the social context of portrait sitters who are husbands and householders as well as members of civic and proto-military organizations. The introduction picks out anomalous touches with which Rembrandt problematizes standard group-portrait motifs in The Night Watch: a shooter who fires his musket into the company; two girls who appear to be moving through the company in the wrong direction; guardsmen who appear to be paying little or no attention to their leader's enthusiastic gesture of command. Were the patrons and sitters aware of or even complicit in staging the anomalies? If not, did the painter get away with a subversive parody of militia portrait conventions at the sitters' expense? Parts One and Two respond to these questions at several levels: first, by analyzing the aesthetic structure of group portraiture as a genre; second, by reviewing the conflicting accounts modern scholars give of the civic guard company as an institution; third, by marking the effect on civic guardsmen of a mercantile economy that relied heavily on wives and mothers to keep the home fires burning. Two phenomena persistently recur in the portraits under discussion: competitive posing and performance anxiety. Part Three studies these phenomena in portraits of married couples and families. Finally, Part Four examines them in The Night Watch in the light of the first three parts.Less
A study of the theory and practice of seventeenth-century Dutch group portraits, this book offers an account of the genre's comic and ironic features, which it treats as comments on the social context of portrait sitters who are husbands and householders as well as members of civic and proto-military organizations. The introduction picks out anomalous touches with which Rembrandt problematizes standard group-portrait motifs in The Night Watch: a shooter who fires his musket into the company; two girls who appear to be moving through the company in the wrong direction; guardsmen who appear to be paying little or no attention to their leader's enthusiastic gesture of command. Were the patrons and sitters aware of or even complicit in staging the anomalies? If not, did the painter get away with a subversive parody of militia portrait conventions at the sitters' expense? Parts One and Two respond to these questions at several levels: first, by analyzing the aesthetic structure of group portraiture as a genre; second, by reviewing the conflicting accounts modern scholars give of the civic guard company as an institution; third, by marking the effect on civic guardsmen of a mercantile economy that relied heavily on wives and mothers to keep the home fires burning. Two phenomena persistently recur in the portraits under discussion: competitive posing and performance anxiety. Part Three studies these phenomena in portraits of married couples and families. Finally, Part Four examines them in The Night Watch in the light of the first three parts.
Christopher D. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801477423
- eISBN:
- 9780801464065
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801477423.003.0006
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This chapter offers a close reading of Warburg's 1926 lecture on Rembrandt, in which he crystallizes his thinking about the Baroque and “superlatives” in art and lays the groundwork for the final ...
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This chapter offers a close reading of Warburg's 1926 lecture on Rembrandt, in which he crystallizes his thinking about the Baroque and “superlatives” in art and lays the groundwork for the final sequence of panels in the Atlas. This lecture also directly informs panels 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, and 75 of Mnemosyne and helps him forge a novel, diagrammatic form of thought that lead to his fateful encounter with Giordano Bruno. In the panels in the Atlas the notion of “metaphorical distance” is at once realized and ironized, as Warburg contemplates the ambivalent symbolism associated with Mussolini, the Eucharist, and new technology.Less
This chapter offers a close reading of Warburg's 1926 lecture on Rembrandt, in which he crystallizes his thinking about the Baroque and “superlatives” in art and lays the groundwork for the final sequence of panels in the Atlas. This lecture also directly informs panels 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, and 75 of Mnemosyne and helps him forge a novel, diagrammatic form of thought that lead to his fateful encounter with Giordano Bruno. In the panels in the Atlas the notion of “metaphorical distance” is at once realized and ironized, as Warburg contemplates the ambivalent symbolism associated with Mussolini, the Eucharist, and new technology.
Laszlo Solymar
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- June 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198863007
- eISBN:
- 9780191895760
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198863007.003.0001
- Subject:
- Physics, Geophysics, Atmospheric and Environmental Physics
The role of communications in human affairs is discussed. An early way of communications is writing on the wall as mentioned in the biblical Book of Daniel, presented in Rembrandt’s interpretation. ...
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The role of communications in human affairs is discussed. An early way of communications is writing on the wall as mentioned in the biblical Book of Daniel, presented in Rembrandt’s interpretation. It is emphasized how expensive communications to places far away was even a century ago and how cheap it is now. Cost of a telephone call to America then and now are compared. It is claimed that the book is suitable for the interested layman; at the same time, there is a lot of information for those who are interested in the history of communications technology.Less
The role of communications in human affairs is discussed. An early way of communications is writing on the wall as mentioned in the biblical Book of Daniel, presented in Rembrandt’s interpretation. It is emphasized how expensive communications to places far away was even a century ago and how cheap it is now. Cost of a telephone call to America then and now are compared. It is claimed that the book is suitable for the interested layman; at the same time, there is a lot of information for those who are interested in the history of communications technology.
Harry Berger Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225569
- eISBN:
- 9780823240937
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823225569.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Wives got a better deal in pendants simply because they occupied their own picture space, and it also implies that they had enough input and influence to affect the production ratio. According to ...
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Wives got a better deal in pendants simply because they occupied their own picture space, and it also implies that they had enough input and influence to affect the production ratio. According to David Smith, painters often treat the wife in a double portrait reasonably well—so long as her pose demonstrates appropriate support and devotion, a condition that by no means excludes emphasis on her autonomy. Schama reads the visual interaction between the sitters as “a portrait of a partnership,” that is, he reads it not merely as the iconic sign of an act of posing but as the index to a more enduring “relationship” and to its “essential human truth.” As the author's modifications of Schama's reading depend on that reading, they are vulnerable to the criticism leveled by Stephanie Dickey in her important new study of Rembrandt.Less
Wives got a better deal in pendants simply because they occupied their own picture space, and it also implies that they had enough input and influence to affect the production ratio. According to David Smith, painters often treat the wife in a double portrait reasonably well—so long as her pose demonstrates appropriate support and devotion, a condition that by no means excludes emphasis on her autonomy. Schama reads the visual interaction between the sitters as “a portrait of a partnership,” that is, he reads it not merely as the iconic sign of an act of posing but as the index to a more enduring “relationship” and to its “essential human truth.” As the author's modifications of Schama's reading depend on that reading, they are vulnerable to the criticism leveled by Stephanie Dickey in her important new study of Rembrandt.
Harry Berger Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225569
- eISBN:
- 9780823240937
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823225569.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Margaret Carroll resists the traditional view that unity was a positive value and that Rembrandt achieved it by “conveying the present-day activities of Amsterdam's militia companies and at the same ...
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Margaret Carroll resists the traditional view that unity was a positive value and that Rembrandt achieved it by “conveying the present-day activities of Amsterdam's militia companies and at the same time recalling their historical role as armed and trained troops in service to the city and the republic.” Inattention and self-absorption are suggested by other means. There is lack of coordination not only within the figure—between the slackness of the lower, gun-bearing hand and the finicky finger-work of the upper hand—but also between this sitter and the others. The obvious problem to avoid is an interpretation that reduces the sitters to unwitting targets of Rembrandt's satire.Less
Margaret Carroll resists the traditional view that unity was a positive value and that Rembrandt achieved it by “conveying the present-day activities of Amsterdam's militia companies and at the same time recalling their historical role as armed and trained troops in service to the city and the republic.” Inattention and self-absorption are suggested by other means. There is lack of coordination not only within the figure—between the slackness of the lower, gun-bearing hand and the finicky finger-work of the upper hand—but also between this sitter and the others. The obvious problem to avoid is an interpretation that reduces the sitters to unwitting targets of Rembrandt's satire.
Harry Berger Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225569
- eISBN:
- 9780823240937
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823225569.003.0018
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
It is easy to imagine that, after the patrons were bowled over by its size and scale, its unparalleled technique, and its generic novelty, they would begin to examine whether it did justice to both ...
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It is easy to imagine that, after the patrons were bowled over by its size and scale, its unparalleled technique, and its generic novelty, they would begin to examine whether it did justice to both their individual likenesses and their collective project. The familiar story centers on the diminishing support given the Stadholder's “military projects” by previously sympathetic Remonstrant regents, who demanded that he reduce their military and “financial contributions to the army” because they “were better served by peace” than by his campaigns in the southern provinces. The parodic elements in The Night Watch can be kept in play as effects for which there is a plausible rationale. In providing this rationale, Carroll obviates the need for allegorization and encourages viewers to enjoy the way Rembrandt renders his portrayal of ineffectual guardsmanship gorgeously and ironically visible.Less
It is easy to imagine that, after the patrons were bowled over by its size and scale, its unparalleled technique, and its generic novelty, they would begin to examine whether it did justice to both their individual likenesses and their collective project. The familiar story centers on the diminishing support given the Stadholder's “military projects” by previously sympathetic Remonstrant regents, who demanded that he reduce their military and “financial contributions to the army” because they “were better served by peace” than by his campaigns in the southern provinces. The parodic elements in The Night Watch can be kept in play as effects for which there is a plausible rationale. In providing this rationale, Carroll obviates the need for allegorization and encourages viewers to enjoy the way Rembrandt renders his portrayal of ineffectual guardsmanship gorgeously and ironically visible.
Mieke Bal
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226035864
- eISBN:
- 9780226035888
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226035888.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
When the author of this book reread the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife as an adult, she was struck by differences between her childhood memories of a moral tale and what she read today. This ...
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When the author of this book reread the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife as an adult, she was struck by differences between her childhood memories of a moral tale and what she read today. This book seeks to resolve this clash between memory and text, using the same story, in which Joseph spurns the advance of his master's wife who then falsely accuses him of rape, as her point of departure. The book juxtaposes the Genesis tale to the rather different version told in the Qur'an and the depictions of it by Rembrandt, and explores how Thomas Mann's great retelling in Joseph and His Brothers reworks these versions. Through this inquiry, the text develops concepts for the analysis of texts that are both strange and overly familiar—culturally remote yet constantly retold. As the book puts personal memories in dialogue with scholarly exegesis, it asks how all of these different versions complicate her own and others' experience of the story, and how the different truths of these texts in their respective traditions illuminate the process of canonization.Less
When the author of this book reread the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife as an adult, she was struck by differences between her childhood memories of a moral tale and what she read today. This book seeks to resolve this clash between memory and text, using the same story, in which Joseph spurns the advance of his master's wife who then falsely accuses him of rape, as her point of departure. The book juxtaposes the Genesis tale to the rather different version told in the Qur'an and the depictions of it by Rembrandt, and explores how Thomas Mann's great retelling in Joseph and His Brothers reworks these versions. Through this inquiry, the text develops concepts for the analysis of texts that are both strange and overly familiar—culturally remote yet constantly retold. As the book puts personal memories in dialogue with scholarly exegesis, it asks how all of these different versions complicate her own and others' experience of the story, and how the different truths of these texts in their respective traditions illuminate the process of canonization.
Alva Noë
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780190928216
- eISBN:
- 9780197601136
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190928216.003.0017
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter evaluates Rembrandt's 1631 painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. The Anatomy Lesson shows Professor Tulp as he probes the anatomy of a cadaver's left arm with an instrument ...
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This chapter evaluates Rembrandt's 1631 painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. The Anatomy Lesson shows Professor Tulp as he probes the anatomy of a cadaver's left arm with an instrument in his right hand, while, with his left hand, he demonstrates the movements of which the left hand is capable and illustrates their dependence on the anatomy. As Dr. Tulp lectures and dissects, he refers his students to graphical representations or verbal descriptions of the relevant anatomy and physiology in a textbook. The chapter then considers an idea—one with which Rembrandt may be experimenting—according to which there is no such thing as the direct inspection of reality; that is, there is no encounter with how things are that is not shaped or at least informed by our thoughts and pictures, and indeed by our scientific theories. Rembrandt's painting of a scientist at work may also be an argument for the irreducible importance of art to the scientist's basic project.Less
This chapter evaluates Rembrandt's 1631 painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. The Anatomy Lesson shows Professor Tulp as he probes the anatomy of a cadaver's left arm with an instrument in his right hand, while, with his left hand, he demonstrates the movements of which the left hand is capable and illustrates their dependence on the anatomy. As Dr. Tulp lectures and dissects, he refers his students to graphical representations or verbal descriptions of the relevant anatomy and physiology in a textbook. The chapter then considers an idea—one with which Rembrandt may be experimenting—according to which there is no such thing as the direct inspection of reality; that is, there is no encounter with how things are that is not shaped or at least informed by our thoughts and pictures, and indeed by our scientific theories. Rembrandt's painting of a scientist at work may also be an argument for the irreducible importance of art to the scientist's basic project.
Alva Noë
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780190928216
- eISBN:
- 9780197601136
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190928216.003.0020
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter begins by addressing Mozart's Don Giovanni. The word “person comes from the Latin persona, meaning “mask,” as in the mask worn by actors on the classical stage. A person, then, in the ...
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This chapter begins by addressing Mozart's Don Giovanni. The word “person comes from the Latin persona, meaning “mask,” as in the mask worn by actors on the classical stage. A person, then, in the original meaning of the term, is not the player, not the living human being, but rather the role played. By changing hat and cloak, the Don and his manservant Leporello exchanged the trappings of their different social roles and so, at least for limited purposes, they really did exchange identities. The modern conception of the person is poised awkwardly between these two poles: at one extreme, the roles we play, and at the other, the living human being who appears in these roles. One can see the tension between these different conceptions working itself out in the history and development of portrait painting. The chapter then looks at two paintings from the permanent collection of the Städel museum in Frankfurt, Germany: Cranach the Younger's 1550 portrait of Martin Luther and Rembrandt's 1633 portrait of Maertgen van Bilderbeecq.Less
This chapter begins by addressing Mozart's Don Giovanni. The word “person comes from the Latin persona, meaning “mask,” as in the mask worn by actors on the classical stage. A person, then, in the original meaning of the term, is not the player, not the living human being, but rather the role played. By changing hat and cloak, the Don and his manservant Leporello exchanged the trappings of their different social roles and so, at least for limited purposes, they really did exchange identities. The modern conception of the person is poised awkwardly between these two poles: at one extreme, the roles we play, and at the other, the living human being who appears in these roles. One can see the tension between these different conceptions working itself out in the history and development of portrait painting. The chapter then looks at two paintings from the permanent collection of the Städel museum in Frankfurt, Germany: Cranach the Younger's 1550 portrait of Martin Luther and Rembrandt's 1633 portrait of Maertgen van Bilderbeecq.
Christopher S. Wood
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190226411
- eISBN:
- 9780190226442
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190226411.003.0025
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy
It is not clear that art ever offers anything like knowledge. But if it does, then one should perhaps look to the self-portrait. The self-portrait is an image of an individual created by that ...
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It is not clear that art ever offers anything like knowledge. But if it does, then one should perhaps look to the self-portrait. The self-portrait is an image of an individual created by that individual, in modern times with the aid of a mirror or a camera. Self-scrutiny in a mirror, and the effort to fix the mirror image in paint or chalk, may bring understanding about the self and its social entanglement in poses and expressions. Even study of a self-portrait produced with little effort, for example, with a camera held at arm’s length, may yield insights into aspects of character and personality masked by social performance. The possibilities and the limits of self-knowledge through self-portraiture are discussed with reference to an etched self-portrait by Rembrandt and to its democratic descendant, the “selfie.”Less
It is not clear that art ever offers anything like knowledge. But if it does, then one should perhaps look to the self-portrait. The self-portrait is an image of an individual created by that individual, in modern times with the aid of a mirror or a camera. Self-scrutiny in a mirror, and the effort to fix the mirror image in paint or chalk, may bring understanding about the self and its social entanglement in poses and expressions. Even study of a self-portrait produced with little effort, for example, with a camera held at arm’s length, may yield insights into aspects of character and personality masked by social performance. The possibilities and the limits of self-knowledge through self-portraiture are discussed with reference to an etched self-portrait by Rembrandt and to its democratic descendant, the “selfie.”
