Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art

Abstract

This volume is a translation of Georg Simmel's 'Rembrandt, Ein kunstphilosophischer Versuch' published by Kurt Wolff Verlag, Leipzig, in 1916. We have endeavored to give a close-to-text rendering of the work. ... 'Rembrandt: An Essay in the Philosophy of Art' was Georg Simmel's last monograph. The first edition appeared in 1916, two years before Simmel's death. Although it was published in the midst of the First World War, the work was a great success and had the highest circulation of any of Simmel's works during his lifetime. After this study on Rembrandt, Simmel published, in 1917, a slim volume called 'Grundfragen der Soziologie' (Basic questions of sociology), which later became known as his "little sociology," and he prepared one more book for publication, a collection of essays he called 'Lebensanschauung: Vier metaphysische Kapitel' (Life-view: four metaphysical chapters). The latter appeared in 1918, but only after his death in September of that year. All of these publications reflect a fundamental shift in Simmel's thinking, which began with Goethe, a lengthy study on the German classical writer and poet, published in 1913. The changes within Simmel's thinking are associated with the 'Lebensphilosophie' movement, which had a strong impact on him, and which he in turn influenced significantly.