Benjamin Moser's 'The Upside-Down World' Examines Ambition in Dutch Golden Age Art

Benjamin Moser's new book 'The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters' explores artistic ambition during the Dutch Golden Age. Published by Allen Lane with a £30 hardcover price, the work examines how social maneuvering influenced artistic success in seventeenth-century Netherlands. Moser contrasts figures like Rembrandt, who maintained his distinctive dark style despite declining patronage, with contemporaries Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck who adapted to fashion and died wealthy. The author also considers Gerard ter Borch's social climbing versus his father's provincial career. Drawing parallels to his own Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Susan Sontag and his work on Clarice Lispector, Moser reflects on creative ambition's complex motivations. The book originated as Moser's personal exploration after moving to the Netherlands at age twenty-five, blending art historical analysis with memoir elements. Nineteenth-century critic Louis Viardot's dismissal of Bol and Flinck as 'simple satellites' illustrates how artistic reputations evolve. Moser acknowledges the risks of inserting his own experiences but uses this approach to investigate what drives creative production.