Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief: Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' and O

Fordham University Press

Manhood, Marriage, and MischiefRembrandt's 'Night Watch' and Other Dutch Group Portraits\nAuthor(s): Harry Berger\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Fordham University Press, United States\nImprint: Fordham University Press\nISBN-13: 9780823225576, 978-0823225576\nSynopsis\nA study of the theory and practice of seventeenth-century Dutch group portraits, Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief offers an account of the genre's comic and ironic features, which it treats as comments on the social context of portrait sitters who are husbands and householders as well as members of civic and proto-military organizations.\n The introduction picks out anomalous touches with which Rembrandt problematizes standard group-portrait motifs in The Night Watch: a shooter who fires his musket into the company; two girls who appear to be moving through the company in the wrong direction; guardsmen who appear to be paying little or no attention to their leader's enthusiastic gesture of command.\n Were the patrons a.