SOURCE: “Picturing Himself,” in Washington Post Book World, November 28, 1999, p. 5.

In the following review of Rembrandt's Eyes, Spear praises Schama's “wonderful evocations of history and art” but finds flaws in the book's “unconvincing” thesis.

Reflecting on Rembrandt's career, Andries Pels, a 17th-century dramatist, concluded that his fellow Dutchman was “the first heretic in painting.” “What a shame for the sake of art,” Pels lamented, “that so able a hand made no better use of his inborn gifts.”

Simon Schama, a cultural historian at Columbia University and author of books including Landscape and Memory and Citizens, makes wonderful use of his own able hand and inborn gifts to bring to life Rembrandt's career as well as that of his contemporary Peter Paul Rubens. Rembrandt's Eyes, whose title refers to the important role that eyes, sight and blindness play in the master's imagery, is three books in one: detailed biographies...