"A small, intimate portrait" illustrating the biography of Ren Descartes and his ideas. Nadler (Philosophy/Univ. of Wisconsin; A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age, 2011, etc.) believes that Descartes "belongs as much to the intellectual culture of the Dutch Golden Age as he does to the grand history of Western philosophy whose development he so strongly influenced." Feeling politically constrained in France, Descartes moved to Holland to work, but his philosophy aroused controversy and opposition in Dutch universities as well. Nadler situates the French philosopher's life in its Dutch context and frames the narrative with an investigation into a few portraits of Descartes. One was supposedly painted by Frans Hals and is in Copenhagen. The author demonstrates that there may be a possibility that one of Descartes' friends commissioned the portrait from Hals as a memento prior to the philosopher's 1649 departure on a visit to the queen of Sweden. This would have been from the period he lived in the village where he wrote the Discourse on Method and Principles of Philosophy. The friend was the Catholic priest Augustijn Alsten Blomart, who lived in the city of Haarlem, just south of Descartes' country-village home. Blomart, as Nadler shows, was well-integrated into contemporary Dutch literary, artistic, scientific and political circles. Hals also lived and worked in Haarlem. Nadler discusses the extant portraits of the philosopher, as well as their provenance and what is known of the context in which they were produced. He also provides a chronological summary of Descartes' philosophical works in relation to their Dutch context. A generalist brings together three fields--philosophy, religion and art--often kept separate.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In the Louvre hangs a portrait of a dark-haired, middle-aged man wearing a black coat. The label identifies the figure as the 17th-century philosopher Rene Descartes. It's a "copy of a Hals" (referring to the Dutch portraitist Frans Hals). Is it really Descartes? Could it be a portrait by Hals and not a copy? Did someone commission this portrait? In a convoluted tale that is part detective story, part art history, and part history of philosophy, Nadler (Spinoza) tries to answer these questions. Along the way, he provides a brief introduction to Descartes's life and thought; in the early part of the 17th century, Descartes traveled to the Netherlands in order to "raise [his] mind above the level of book learning." While he remained only a few years, he returned permanently in 1629 in search of peace and quiet, and published Discourse on Method there in 1637. This work-containing Decartes's declaration, "I think, therefore I am"-brought him into contact with artists and religious thinkers, including Augustijn Bloemaert and Johan Albert Ban. When Queen Christina of Sweden invited Descartes to be her tutor in 1647, he began preparations to depart from the Netherlands, and Bloemaert sought to have Descartes's portrait painted as a memento. Better suited as a journal article, Nadler's lackluster tale has limited appeal. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Cartesian iconography centers around a widely known portrait of Descartes attributed to Frans Hals. In this book, Nadler (Univ. of Wisconsin--Madison) uses the story of that painting's origin to present a study of Descartes and his philosophy that will be accessible to a wide audience. A sketch of Descartes's early life and philosophy follows the brief introduction. Next, a chapter on the religious politics of the Netherlands introduces Abraham Bloemaert, later a close friend of Descartes in Haarlem; another chapter focuses on the paintings of Hals. Two chapters that present the basic philosophy of the Meditations and the Principles of Philosophy follow. The last two chapters deal with Descartes's difficulties with theologians and offer some speculations about the Hals portrait as possibly being a keepsake portrait Bloemaert commissioned on Descartes's departure from Holland. Though the sections setting up the story may range a bit too broadly to sustain interest in the "mystery" of the painting, this volume serves as a very good introduction to Descartes's philosophy in historical context. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-level undergraduates; general readers. C. D. Kay Wofford College