Manhood, Marriage, And Mischief: Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' And Other Dutch Group Portraits [Hardcover]

Harry Berger Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 16, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0823225569 | ISBN-13: 978-0823225569 | Edition: 2

A study of the theory and practice of seventeenth-century Dutch group portraits, Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief 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 homefires 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. The result is an interpretation that reads Rembrandt's painting both as a deliberate parody by the sitters and as the artist's covert parody of the sitters.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Harry Berger, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His most recent books include Fictions of the Pose: Rembrandt Against the Italian Renaissance; Situated Utterances: Texts, Bodies, and Cultural Representations; and Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief: Rembrandt's Night Watch and Other Dutch Group Portraits (the latter two from Fordham).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Fordham University Press; 2 edition (April 16, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823225569
• ISBN-13: 978-0823225569
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 8.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,395,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and expressive critique., September 1, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Manhood, Marriage, And Mischief: Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' And Other Dutch Group Portraits (Paperback)

Written by Harry Berger, Jr. (Professor Emeritus of Literature and Art History, Univ. of California Santa Cruz), Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief: Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' and Other Dutch Group Portraits is an in-depth study of the theory and practice of seventeenth-century Dutch group portraits. Illustrated with black-and-white representations of classic Dutch paintings, as well as a handful of inset color plates, Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief examines what the portraits have to say given the context of their times. In particular, since a number of the group portraits are of militia members, Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief delves into what the portraits reveal of Dutch militias - and what they conceal or fancify. Chapters discuss "Male Bondage and the Military Imperative", "Picturing Family Values", "Disaggregation as Class Conflict" and much more. Especial focus is placed upon the subtexts and subtleties of Rembrandt's enduring painting 'Night Watch', in this thoughtful and expressive critique.