Rembrandt's 'Bathsheba Reading King David's Letter'

A collection of essays concerning Rembrandt's Bathsheba Reading King David's Letter.

Ann Jensen Adams (Edited by)

9780521459860, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 November 1998

230 pages, 35 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.33 kg

"...essential reading not only for their respective pictures, but for their respective artists...the essays work collectively to round out understanding of a key work and remind us of why scholarly attention has created a canon." Renaissance Quarterly

Rembrandt's masterful Bathsheba Reading King David's Letter is unusual both as a history painting and as a portrayal of a nude. Instead of displaying a sumptuous body for the viewer's delectation, Bathsheba elicits our empathy. This collection of essays by seven leading Rembrandt scholars examines its qualities from perspectives ranging from changing perceptions of female beauty and the nude, technical analysis, and biographical and psychological analysis of the artist, the subject, and the viewer. The juxtaposition of these different approaches to a single work highlights how both the artist and his art are constructed through the questions we ask, and facilitates a comparison of some of the different approaches practiced by art historians today.

Introduction: perspectives on Rembrandt and his works Ann Jensen Adams
1. Rembrandt's Bathsheba: the object and its transformations Ernst van de Wetering
2. Rembrandt's Bathsheba and the conventions of a seductive theme Eric Jan Sluijter
3. An incomparable Bathsheba Leo Steinberg
4. Reading Bathsheba: from mastercodes to misfits Mieke Bal
5. Not Bathsheba: I. The painter and the model Svetlana Alpers
II. Uriah's gaze Margaret D. Carroll
6. 'Though deficient in beauty': the reluctant, then hyperbolic reception of a masterpiece Gary Schwartz.

Subject Areas: History of art & design styles: c 1600 to c 1800 [ACQ]