"What motivated Dutch artists in their life-like depiction of visual reality? Do their paintings contain a 'hidden symbolism'? How should one explain their remarkable attention to the play of light, reflections, and surface textures? This book provides new answers to these and other questions by exploring the writings of one of Rembrandt's pupils, Samuel van Hoogstraten. One of its conclusions is that seventeenth-century artists regarded their contemplative focus on the visible world as a means of examining and glorifying God's creation."--BOOK JACKET.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 443-462) and indexes.