Presents reflections on the meaning and significance of Rembrandt's work. Answering such questions as 'What do we see in a work of art?' and 'What do Rembrandt's portraits tell us about human nature?' this study offers insights not only into art, but also into larger questions on culture, symbols and human relations.

Editor's Introduction: Georg Simmel on Rembrandt: Understanding the Human Beyond Naturalism and ConventionalismChapter One: The Expression of Inner LifeContinuity of Life and the Movement of ExpressionBeing and Becoming in a PortraitThe Series of Portraits and DrawingsReserve and Openness of the Portrait FigureThe Circle in the Depiction of a PersonThe Animation of the PortraitSubjective Realism and the Self-PortraitArtistic ProcreationLife's Past in the PaintingThe Representation of MovementThe Unity of the CompositionClarity and DetailingLife and FormChapter Two: Individualization and the GeneralType and RepresentationTwo Concepts of LifeObservations on the Individuality of Form and on PantheismDeathCharacterBeauty and PerfectionThe Individuality of the Renaissance and of RembrandtTypes of GeneralityThe Art of Old AgeThe Aspatial GazeMoodHuman Fate and the Heraclitean CosmosChapter Three: Religious ArtObjective and Subjective Religion in ArtPietyConcrete Existence and Religious LifeThe Type of Unity in the Religious PaintingsIndividual Religiosity, Mystique and CalvinismInner QualityReligious-artistic CreationLight: Its Individuality and ImmanenceExcursus: What do we see in a work of art?Dogmatic ContentsIn ConclusionThe Capacity to Create and to FashionAntitheses in ArtAppendix