A gathering of artful essays by one of Poland’s most translated post-war writers is here brought to a new audience. Poet and essayist Zbigniew Herbert takes an intriguing look at the cultural, artistic, and aesthetic legacy of 17th-century Holland. These sixteen essays reveal Herbert’s discriminating artistic eye and poetic sensibility, one that revels in irony, humour, and a satirist’s appreciation of the absurd.

An inveterate museum-goer, he focuses on the art of the Dutch masters, using it as a stepping-off point for a thoroughly individual and entertaining examination of the foibles, genius, and character of the Dutch people as ... Read morea whole, from Tulipmania to the devastating stirrings of early capitalism. Part travelogue, the result is an unorthodox and revealing glimpse into the past that gives us a keener understanding not only of a distant people, but of ourselves as well.