In 2007, the internationally renowned filmmaker Peter Greenaway ( The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover; The Draughtsman's Contract ) will release Nightwatching , a feature-length study of the life and loves of the eighteenth-century Dutch painter, Rembrandt, via his controversial masterpiece, "The Night Watch," an ensemble painting which depicts the identification of a murderer. According to Greenaway, the painting is "Rembrandt's J'accuse ." There is a conspiracy painted in Rembrandt's The Night Watch . The sinister title of the painting alone suggests we should look for it . Is this a painting, or an act of theater, or a still from a film?" In this accompanying artist's book, Greenaway offers fans a glimpse into his own artistic process, with written analyses of each of the characters in the painting followed by a wealth of enlarged, close-up details in which brush marks practically jump from the page.
Nightwatching