Even during the artist's lifetime, contemporary art lovers considered Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) to be an exceptional artist. In this revelatory sequel to the acclaimed Rembrandt: The Painter at Work, renowned Rembrandt authority Ernst van de Wetering investigates the painter's considerations that determined the striking changes in his development from an early age onwards.

This gorgeously illustrated book explores how Rembrandt achieved mastery by systematic exploration of the 'foundations of the art of painting'. According to written sources from the seventeenth century, which were largely misinterpreted until now, these 'foundations' were considered essential at that time. From his first endeavours in painting, Rembrandt embarked on a journey past these foundations, thus becoming the 'pittore famoso', whom Count Cosimo the Medici visited at the end of his life. Rembrandt never stopped searching for solutions to the pictorial problems that confronted him; this led over time to radical changes that cannot simply be attributed to stylistic evolution or natural development.

In a quest as rigorous and novel as the artist's, Van de Wetering reveals how Rembrandt became the revolutionary painter that would continue to fascinate the art world. This ground breaking exploration reconstructs Rembrandt's theories and methods, shedding new light both on the artist's exceptional accomplishments and on the theory and practice of painting in the Dutch Golden Age.
About the Author: Ernst van de Wetering (1938) was professor of art history. He became a team-member of the Rembrandt Research Project in 1968 and its chairman in 1993. Originally trained as a painter and art-historian, he worked from 1969-1987 in the Amsterdam based Central Research Laboratory of Objects of Art and Science. From 1987-2002 he taught at the University of Amsterdam. In 2003/2004 he was Slade Professor at the University of Oxford. He was considered one of the world's foremost specialists on Rembrandt and his work. In 1997, he published the widely acclaimed monograph Rembrandt: The Painter at Work (2nd ed. 2008). 2014 saw the publication of his monumental oeuvre catalogue Rembrandt's Paintings Revisited: A Complete Survey; the concluding volume of A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings.