Description
Book SynopsisA study of the theory and practice of seventeenth-century Dutch group portraits, this title 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.
Trade Review"Berger is one of the few cultural critics able to offer a truly innovative view of Dutch portraiture." -- -Erika Naginski MIT "Berger reads portraits as keys to the competitive tensions of domestic and civil relations as a whole." -Renaissance Quarterly "Part crime-scene investigation, part learned rhapsody, Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief is the latest installment in Harry Berger's ongoing conversation with the richly enigmatic faces met in early modern visual and literary art. The book explores the simultaneously social, technological, and intellectual springs of early modern Dutch group portraits as seen through the lens of Rembrandt's Night Watch. The result is a dazzling display of rigor and wit, intelligence and grace, encyclopedic critical learning and unfailing humanity. Already perhaps our greatest close reader of Renaissance literature, Berger has now reinvented himself as one of our most imaginative interpreters of early modern painting." -- -Christopher Braider Brown University "Berger offers up a richly interwoven analysis of Dutch group portraiture that elucidates not only the popular Netherlandish genre, but also introduces a wealth of interrelated issues that enlarge our view of the painter's art. Compelling." -Art Times "In this study of the theory and practice of 17th-century Dutch group portraits, Berger defines and discusses the portrait as the record of an event." -Book News, Inc.
