Mieke Bal, Reading Rembrandt: Beyond the Word-Image Opposition

BAL, Mieke, Reading Rembrandt: Beyond the Word-Image Opposition, Amsterdam University Press, 2006, 518 pp.

ISBN : 90 5356 858 1

Reading Rembrandt questions the traditional boundaries between literary and visual analysis with close, side-by-side readings of some of the Dutch master’s works alongside paintings of the same era whose attribution is still debated. A new understanding of the role of visuality in our culture emerges, one that makes significant inroads, most particularly, for the study of gender in Rembrandt’s work. Demonstrating acute sensitivity to Rembrandt’s art, acclaimed scholar and author Mieke Bal gives new depth to an old master, a perspective with vast consequences for our views of gender, the artist, and the act of reading.