How Rembrandt Reveals Your Beautiful, Imperfect Self: Life Lessons from the Master [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Roger Housden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 26, 2005

Rembrandt, one of the greatest artists of all time, was spectacularly successful in his twenties and thirties, bankrupt by his fifties, and died an unsung death in 1669 at the age of sixty-three. Along the way, he had to bury four of his five children and the two loves of his life, and he had to look on while his patrons chose the predictable but uninspired work of his pupils over his own increasingly innovative style. Yet adversity seemed only to deepen his faith and his genius. His self-portraits, especially, are testimonies to the human spirit, to eyes that can see beyond the confines of the visible world, but also to the human soul, its tenacity and its aspirations, and to the human body, its beauty, its sagging truth, its essential loveliness, whatever its shape or form.

This is a deeply moving and uplifting book. Part biography, part history, part art appreciation, it takes the example of Rembrandt’s life and work as inspiration for the strength we need to live with passion and an unflinching acceptance of who we are.

Roger Housden shows how the incredible life and work of Rembrandt van Rijn can serve as a wise and honest mirror to clarify our own hopes, struggles, and aspirations. The book consists of six lessons that draw on Rembrandt’s self-portraits and life story: Open your eyes; Love this world; Troubles will come; Stand like a tree; Keep the faith; Embrace the inevitable

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

More than any other artist in history, Rembrandt bears witness to the "eternal joy and struggle of our own human soul and to the poignant bittersweet reality of our physical mortality," Housden (Ten Poems to Last a Lifetime, etc.) writes in his accessible meditative guide to the artist's life, work and meaning for our times. Recollecting how he was profoundly moved by Rembrandt's Self Portrait, 1669, Housden marvels at the artist's ability to face himself with intense truthfulness and acceptance. Housden charts the Dutch master's rise as a successful painter winning lucrative commissions, as well as his tragic domestic life, sexual scandal, fall from professional grace and poverty-stricken old age. Above all, Housden admires Rembrandt's dedication to observation—his "long, slow look"—which, he points out, is so unlike our own age's emphasis on rapid action, immediacy and clarity. Although Housden occasionally quotes art historian Simon Schama, his account is largely unmediated by experts, consisting instead of his own firsthand descriptions of Rembrandt's paintings, complete with historical background and insights into 17th-century Protestant values. Housden's reflections and observations (like his title—too reminiscent of How Proust Can Change Your Life) are far from original or penetrating, but he fully succeeds in communicating the artist's enduring appeal. 28 b&w photos. (On sale Apr. 26)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Can a great painter's vision change your life? Housden portrays the Dutch master Rembrandt as a humanist and the world's first "modern" painter because he painted more self-portraits than any other painter before or since. Rembrandt suffered financial ruin and lost many family members, yet his creative spirit reigned over despair. Declaring that the true purpose of art is the enhancement of self-perception, Housden uses Rembrandt's masterworks to illustrate the painter's faith and vision and, by extension, lessons in living for us all. Self-acceptance is the key to discovering our beautiful selves at all life stages, Housden suggests, then provides life lessons in illustrated sections on love, courage, faith, and, perhaps most audaciously in today's youth-obsessed culture, the visible life experience of age and inevitably of death. This self-help perspective on Rembrandt aims to inspire readers to accept the journey, and the final destination. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harmony (April 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400082293
• ISBN-13: 978-1400082292
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #445,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting biographical info, needs color!, January 11, 2006

By 

D. McDiffett "iteachlit" (Salina, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How Rembrandt Reveals Your Beautiful, Imperfect Self: Life Lessons from the Master (Hardcover)

Part of my low rating has to do with the format of the book, likely nothing the author could control. That is the paucity of photographs of Rembrandt's paintings--and the ones that are here are in black and white, completely insufficient for a book on a painter famous for his use of colors!
That said, I did find the facts about Rembrandt's life interesting, not having known them before. Those more familiar with those facts will probably not find anything new here. The author's personal thoughts on similarities between Rembrandt's life and our modern lives are occasionally thought-provoking, as we might notice how life hasn't changed that much in over 350 years. But thost same thoughts are not very penetrating, falling under chapter titles such as "Trust your own way," "Love leads to forgiveness," and "Age will come."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightened Self-Acceptance, December 7, 2011

By 

G. Charles Steiner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How Rembrandt Reveals Your Beautiful, Imperfect Self: Life Lessons from the Master (Hardcover)

I appreciate one Amazon reviewer citing how few are the reproductions of Rembrandt's self-portraits in this book. I understand as well the same reviewer's complaints that certain chapter titles seem trite. These aspects are flaws, but the whole impact of the book is hardly lessened due to these flaws. Maybe one has to grow old in order to understand what Roger Housden is saying with his exploration of the meaning of Rembrandt's self-portraits in relation to his life. He's saying that Rembrandt made a long journey in self-exploration and self-study by painting himself as a young man, then as a full-grown man and then again as an older man -- a journey which ended in as perfect self-acceptance as is humanly, perhaps even divinely, possible.

To overcome the lack of self-portraits reproduced in the book, go to the library and get a book of his reproductions and look at them carefully. That's all you need. Or visit the museums in the U.S. where his paintings are being displayed. Rembrandt shows you self-acceptance in the final end, in the middle, and in the beginning of his life when we're all full of ourselves and arrogant as hell. That's the message of Roger Housden's book. If you don't "get it," it's not the book's fault, I think. Maybe you haven't delved into the art of introspection much. Maybe you haven't "reckoned a thousand acres much," as Walt Whitman says. Maybe, just maybe, you have no flaws and feel no need for greater self-acceptance than you already have and so you give a pass on the book. Its meaning has escaped you -- for now.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Painting reflects self, October 26, 2011

By 

Neil The Unreel (MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Rembrandt Reveals Your Beautiful, Imperfect Self: Life Lessons from the Master (Hardcover)

There is some information on Rembrandt and how his life and work were so related. The book does give a history of his life through the paintings. In some aspect it has merit and reflects on life, but the author is short on detail in both the paintings and life. Roger Housden does a so-so job on the interconnection between life and subject matter of the paintings. A decent overview of the man and his work, but nothing really hard-hitting.