The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer turns his eye to the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age
Twenty years ago Benjamin Moser followed a love affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to
make sense of this new place he threw himself into the Dutch museums. Soon he found himself
unearthing the strange inspiring and sometimes terrifying stories of the artists who shaped
one of the most luminous moments in the history of human creativity the Dutch Golden Age. As
he explored the hidden world of the Dutch Masters (and one Mistress) Moser met a crowd of
fascinating personalities: the stormy Rembrandt the intimate Ter Borch the mysterious
Vermeer. Through their art he got to know their country too: from Pieter Saenredam's
translucent churches to Paulus Potter's muddy barnyards and from Pieter de Hooch's cozy
hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael's tragic trees. Over the years Moser found himself on
increasingly intimate terms with these centuries-dead artists and found that they too were
struggling with the same questions he was. Why do we make art? What 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. It is a brilliant colourful and learned book for anyone whether
lifelong scholar or curious tourist who has ever felt the lure of the Dutch galleries. It
shows us art and artists as we have never seen them before.
