Samuel van Hoogstraten was not only one of Rembrandt's most successful pupils but also a versatile painter in his own right. His experiments in optical illusion also attracted the interest of the natural scientists of his time, and he wrote some of the first Dutch novels, plays, and a treatise on painting. This rich interdisciplinary study examines how van Hoogstraten understood the relationship between art, literature, and science and how these reflected the general views of his time. Bringing to the fore hitherto unknown works, the book is an important contribution to our understanding of van Hoogstraten's life and art.
