By Benjamin Moser, I loved this book. It is one of my favorite books of art criticism ever, written from the perspective of a fan I might add. It talks you through the pictures and the lives of the 17th century Dutch artists and tries to tie it all together. It doesn’t spend too much time on the super-famous works or the anecdotes you might already know.
If you want to get down to brass tacks, after Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Fabritius — the top Dutch masters — I like Pieter Saenredam and Paulus Potter and Rachel Ruysch, who had ten children. I admire Hals, but don’t go to any great lengths to go see it. Judith Leyster remains modestly underrated. If you read this book, you’ll come away with your own opinions, or revise the ones you already have. The color plates are well presented.
Moser is highly rated but still underrated, and his Lispector and Sontag biographies are excellent as well.
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