The UpsideDown World, Benjamin Moser
The UpsideDown World, Benjamin Moser
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The Upside-Down World
Meetings with the Dutch Masters

Author: Benjamin Moser

Narrator: Paul Boehmer

Unabridged: 11 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/31/2023


Synopsis

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

About Benjamin Moser

Benjamin Moser was born in Houston, Texas, and lives in Utrecht. He is the author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, and for Sontag: Her Life and Work, he won the Pulitzer Prize.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Enchanted Prose on October 19, 2023

Self-discovery immersed in the Dutch Golden Age (cities in The Netherlands; 1976 to present-day): “In every age, art is an experiment for every artist, just as, in every age, life is an experiment for every person,” wrote Benjamin Moser years ago in an article, Can Writers Still ‘Make it New’? Soon......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on May 28, 2024

This is about Dutch painters. You know. The Masters. But not just Rembrandt and Vermeer. the other ones also who deserve our attention. It's a great book. It's a shame I just read 'Thunderclap' by Laura Cumming (also outstanding) and I thought, 'Am I really going to read about the Dutch Golden Age w......more

Goodreads review by Bint on November 28, 2023

If you have an interest in the Dutch masters (and let's not forget that 'masters' includes a small number of outstanding female artists) then you will love this book. It describes the lives and works of eighteen greats. Its strength is that, while many books on the subject trot out the same basic fa......more

Goodreads review by Debbie on January 31, 2024

This is a beautiful book—physically to hold and view with its pleasing (and many) photographs on silky white paper, and to read. The book’s cover too is like a work of art; it lends itself to the marvelous chapters within, each dedicated to a notable artist of the Dutch Golden Age. (On a side note,......more

Goodreads review by Aurelija on January 12, 2025

Refleksijos apie olandų tapybos aukso amžių, autoriaus gyvenimo emigracijoje savirefleksijos. Smarkus užmojis, daug menininkų, viską turėtų vienyti viena tema: kas tas menas, kodėl žmonės juo užsiima ir pan. Nežinau, ar knyga pateikia atsakymą, veikiau ne, man susiskaitė fragmentiškai (ir rašyta, sa......more