The Rise of the Cult of Rembrandt

Download or read book The Rise of the Cult of Rembrandt written by Alison McQueen and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rembrandt's life and art had an almost mythic resonance in nineteenth-century France with artists, critics, and collectors alike using his artistic persona both as a benchmark and as justification for their own goals. This first in-depth study of the traditional critical reception of Rembrandt reveals the preoccupation with his perceived "authenticity," "naturalism," and "naiveté," demonstrating how the artist became an ancestral figure, a talisman with whom others aligned themselves to increase the value of their own work. And in a concluding chapter, the author looks at the playRembrandt, staged in Paris in 1898, whose production and advertising are a testament to the enduring power of the artist's myth.