Classic Debate: Rembrandt vs Vermeer - The Titans of Dutch Painting

Welcome to Intelligence Squared. Where great minds meet. I am producer Layla Eshmare. Today's episode is a classic debate from 2015, Rembrandt vs Vemir, the Titans of Dut painting. Making the case for Rembrandt Van Rain was historian, author, and broadcaster Simon Sharmer.

Arguing in favour of Johannes Vermeer was author Tracy Chevalier, whose bestselling novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, took inspiration from Vermeer's painting of the same name. Now let's join art historian, writer and museum director Tim Marlow, who chaired the debate. Okay. First up, Simon Sharmer, Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University, author of seventeen books, I think, to date, and counting everything from slavery to the history of Britain to the history of the Jews, but also Rembrandt's Nice. which has just been republished by Penguin Tonight, he's Rembrandt's voice. Let him start

Twenty three minutes on Rembrandt starting. No. Thank you too. No, we don't have time for that. We so don't have time for clapping. Barely have time for breathing, actually. To begin with, what do we want from art? How do we think of the very greatest art? It could even be abstract art. Do we want art essentially to be an edited version of our own experienced human reality and all its kind of sweat and dirt and flesh and blood and craziness and passion, as well as its quiet, tender moments. Do we do we want that?

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