Reading Rembrandt: Beyond the Word-Image Opposition

by Mieke Bal

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.

Genres: Art

518 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 1991

About the author

Mieke Bal is a Dutch literary theorist, cultural and art historian.

Areas of interest range from biblical and classical antiquity to 17th century and contemporary art and modern literature, feminism and migratory culture. Her many publications include A Mieke Bal Reader (2006), Travelling Concepts in the Humanities (2002) and Narratology (4th edition 2017). Her view of interdisciplinary analysis in the Humanities and Social Sciences is expressed in the profile of what she has termed “cultural analysis”, the basis of ASCA. See the video clip on the right side of this page, where I explain the approach.

Mieke is also a video artist, her internationally exhibited documentaries on migration include Separations, State of Suspension, Becoming Vera and the installation Nothing is Missing and are part of the Cinema Suitcase collective. With Michelle Williams Gamaker she made the feature film A Long History of Madness, a theoretical fiction about madness, and related exhibitions (2012). Her following project Madame B: Explorations in Emotional Capitalism, also with Michelle, is exhibited worldwide. She just finished a feature film and 5-screen installation on René Descartes and his infelicitously ending friendship with Queen Kristina of Sweden.

Occasionally she acts as an independent curator. Her co-curated exhibition 2MOVE travelled to four countries. She is currently preparing an exhibition for the Munch museum in Oslo.