Georg Simmel

First published in 1916 in German, this important work has never been translated into English--until now. Simmel attacks such questions as "What do we see in a work of Art?" and "What do Rembrandt's portraits tell us about human nature?" This is a major work by a major thinker concerning one of the world's most important painters.

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) was a German sociologist of high regard. His most famous work, which Routledge also publishes, is The Philosophy of Money. Alan Scott is Professor and Helmut Staubmann is Associate Professor, both in the Department of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.

Editor's Introduction: Georg Simmel on Rembrandt: Understanding the Human Beyond Naturalism and ConventionalismChapter One: The Expression of Inner LifeContinuity of Life and the Movement of ExpressionBeing and Becoming in a PortraitThe Series of Portraits and DrawingsReserve and Openness of the Portrait FigureThe Circle in the Depiction of a PersonThe Animation of the PortraitSubjective Realism and the Self-PortraitArtistic ProcreationLife's Past in the PaintingThe Representation of MovementThe Unity of the CompositionClarity and DetailingLife and FormChapter Two: Individualization and the GeneralType and RepresentationTwo Concepts of LifeObservations on the Individuality of Form and on PantheismDeathCharacterBeauty and PerfectionThe Individuality of the Renaissance and of RembrandtTypes of GeneralityThe Art of Old AgeThe Aspatial GazeMoodHuman Fate and the Heraclitean CosmosChapter Three: Religious ArtObjective and Subjective Religion in ArtPietyConcrete Existence and Religious LifeThe Type of Unity in the Religious PaintingsIndividual Religiosity, Mystique and CalvinismInner QualityReligious-artistic CreationLight: Its Individuality and ImmanenceExcursus: What do we see in a work of art?Dogmatic ContentsIn ConclusionThe Capacity to Create and to FashionAntitheses in ArtAppendix