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The Philosopher, The Priest, And The Painter: A Portrait Of DescartesStock informationGeneral Fields
Special Fields
DescriptionIn the Louvre museum hangs a portrait of a middle-aged man with long dark hair, a mustache, and heavy-lidded eyes, and he is dressed in the starched white collar and black coat of the typical Dutch burgher. The painting is now the iconic image of Rene Descartes, the great seventeenth-century French philosopher. And the painter of the work? The Dutch master Frans Hals - or so it was long believed, until the work was downgraded to a copy of an original. But where, then, is the authentic version located, and who painted it? Is the man in the painting - and in its original - really Descartes? A unique combination of philosophy, biography, and art history, "The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter" investigates the remarkable individuals and circumstances behind a small portrait. Through this image - and the intersecting lives of a brilliant philosopher, a Catholic priest, and a gifted painter - Steven Nadler opens up a fascinating portal into Descartes' life and times, skillfully presenting an accessible introduction to Descartes' philosophical and scientific ideas, and an illuminating tour of the volatile political and religious environment of the Dutch Golden Age. ReviewsPraise for Steven Nadler's A Book Forged in Hell:"[A] delightfully lucid and philosophically thorough account... What makes Nadler's so welcome a contribution is the care and the clarity of his philosophical exposition. -- Peter Gordon New Republic Author descriptionSteven Nadler is the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin--Madison. His books include "Rembrandt's Jews", which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; "Spinoza: A Life", which won the Koret Jewish Book Award; and "A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age" (Princeton). |