Plunged into a strange land at twenty-five, Benjamin Moser began an obsessive, decades-long study of the Dutch Masters to set his world right again. Arriving as a young writer in an ancient Dutch town, Benjamin Moser found himself visiting—casually at first, and then more and more obsessively—the country’s great museums. Inside these old buildings, he discovered the remains of the Dutch Golden Age and began to unearth the strange, inspiring, and terrifying stories of the artists who gave shape to one of the most luminous moments in the history of human creativity. Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. And through their artwork, he got to know their country, too: from the translucent churches of Pieter Saenredam to Paulus Potter’s muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch’s cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael’s tragic trees. Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was. Why do we make art? What even is art, anyway—and what is an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does it mean to fail? Is art a consolation—or a mortal danger? The Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. This is Holland and its great artists as we’ve never seen them before. And it’s a sumptuously illustrated, highly personal coming-of-age-story, twenty years in the making: a revealing self-portrait by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.

Provides a comprehensive treatment of the achievements of the school of the Dutch Golden Age. The volume is the catalogue for an exhibition at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; and the National Gallery, London, (May-July 1998).

Featuring paintings by American icons like Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins, this book illustrates the ways American artists have viewed themselves, their peers, and their painted worlds over 200 years.

Biographies of the main artists and a thematic gallery of the greatest paintings of the period, in one sumptuously illustrated volume.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' PICK “Thrilling . . . [told] with gonzo élan . . . When the sommelier and blogger Madeline Puckette writes that this book is the Kitchen Confidential of the wine world, she’s not wrong, though Bill Buford’s Heat is probably a shade closer.” —Jennifer Senior, The New York Times Professional journalist and amateur drinker Bianca Bosker didn’t know much about wine—until she discovered an alternate universe where taste reigns supreme, a world of elite sommeliers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of flavor. Astounded by their fervor and seemingly superhuman sensory powers, she set out to uncover what drove their obsession, and whether she, too, could become a “cork dork.” With boundless curiosity, humor, and a healthy dose of skepticism, Bosker takes the reader inside underground tasting groups, exclusive New York City restaurants, California mass-market wine factories, and even a neuroscientist’s fMRI machine as she attempts to answer the most nagging question of all: what’s the big deal about wine? What she learns will change the way you drink wine—and, perhaps, the way you live—forever. “Think: Eat, Pray, Love meets Somm.” —theSkimm “As informative as it is, well, intoxicating.” —Fortune

In this book Michael North examines the Dutch Golden Age, when the Netherlands boasted Europe's greatest number of cities & its highest literacy rate, with unusually large numbers of publicly & privately owned art works, religious tolerance, etc.

Roberto Longhi (1890 - 1970) is regarded by Italians as their most important art critic, art historian, and prose stylist of this century, with unsurpassed powers of observation and description. This book is a new English version of the third edition (1963) of Longhi's seminal work on the Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca, with an introduction by Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Keith Christiansen. In the New York Review of Books, Francis Haskell wrote, Roberto Longhi is "the most brilliant Italian art historian of our century and a stylist of intoxicating powers . . . few of his very idiosyncratic works have been translated into English; but thanks to the enterprise of the Sheep Meadow Press, this situation is at last being remedied."

Newly independent in 1585, the increasingly prosperous and politically powerful Dutch Republic experienced a tremendous rise in the production of artwork that was unparalleled in quantity, variety, and beauty. Now back in print, this classic book (originally published in 1996) examines the country's rich artistic culture in the seventeenth century, providing a full account of Dutch artists and patrons; artistic themes and techniques; and the political and social world in which artists worked. Distinguished art historian Mariët Westermann examines the ?worldly art” of this time in the context of the unique society that produced it, analyzing artists' choices and demonstrating how their pictures tell particular stories about the Dutch Republic, its people, and its past. More than 100 color illustrations complement this engaging discussion of an extraordinary moment in the history of art.

This volume will mark the first time Johannes Vermeer's iconic painting will be seen in the Southeast. The painting headlines the exhibition, which highlights the artistic genius of Dutch Golden Age painters, including Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals and Jan Steen, through the presentation of more than 35 exceptional works. Through landscapes and portraits, this book will explore the idea that Dutch artists more readily embraced paintings of everyday subjects than their southern European contemporaries, focusing on capturing commonplace scenes of daily life. Dutch artists not only recorded representations of the domestic interior, still lifes and boisterous crowds, but often imbued these scenes with moral undertones and humorous, sarcastic wit. (Exhibition: High Museum of Art, Atlanta, USA (22.6.-29.9.2013)).

The weekend, a solitary house, beautiful models and an experienced photographer. Michael White's photographs are, in truth, e: r: otic short stories. From graceful and ladylike to wantonly obscene, nothing is off the table. A photo book bursting with intimate e: r: oticism that delves deep into the private happenings of weekends. P.S. Take a look before using up all your weekend.