The Pulitzer Prizewinning biographer turns his eye to the seventeenthcentury Dutch Golden Age Twenty years ago Benjamin Moser followed a love affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to make sense of this new place he threw himself into the Dutch museums. Soon he found himself unearthing the strange inspiring and sometimes terrifying stories of the artists who shaped one of the most luminous moments in the history of human creativity the Dutch Golden Age.As he explored the hidden world of the Dutch Masters and one Mistress Moser met a crowd of fascinating personalities the stormy Rembrandt the intimate Ter Borch the mysterious Vermeer. Through their art he got to know their country too from Pieter Saenredams translucent churches to Paulus Potters muddy barnyards and from Pieter de Hoochs cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdaels tragic trees. Over the years Moser found himself on increasingly intimate terms with these centuriesdead artists and found that they too were struggling with the same questions he was. Why do we make art What is art anyway and what is an artist What does it mean to succeed as an artist and what does it mean to failThe UpsideDown World is an invitation to ask these questions and to turn them on their heads to look and then to look again. It is a brilliant colourful and learned book for anyone whether lifelong scholar or curious tourist who has ever felt the lure of the Dutch galleries. It shows us art and artists as we have never seen them before.