Rembrandt's Self-Portraits: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity

About this book

H. Perry Chapman has produced the first comprehensive treatment of the entire body of Rembrandts self-portraits in their cultural and historical setting and in the context of the artists life. Prevailing scholarship has tried to discredit the idea that the self-portraits stemmed from any particular inner need but Chapman counters by presenting fascinating evidence that they represent a conscious and progressive quest for individual identity in a truly modern sense. "H. Perry Chapman in my view gives us the Rembrandt we need in the 1990s. . . . Her sensitivity to questions of style and expression combined with original research leads to a conclusion . . . that Rembrandts lifelong preoccupation with self-portraiture can be seen as a necessary process of identity formation or self-definition--in short autobiography."--Walter Liedtke The Journal of Art "Chapman is a graceful writer. Her arguments are balanced well documented and vigorously pursued. . . . The publication of this book is cause for gratitude and joy."--Thomas DEvelyn Christian Science Monitor