How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
On the wall in front of him Jacob saw a portrait of himself. In ancient oils. Head to waist. Angled towards his left. In rich and rusty browns. Except for the pale triangular familiar face. Life size. Which shone as if bathed in sunlight, framed within the shadowed enclosure of a monk's hood raised over the head. Eyes lowered and heavy-lidded. Wide mouth with fleshy bee-stung lower lip caught by the painter in a shy demure pleased-with-himself smile. And the feature which took most of Jacob's attention because he hated it so much, the long thick nose with its blunt and bulbous end. His father's nose. His grandfather's nose. The Todd nose. His sister Poppy and his brother Harry didn't have it. They had his mother's pretty, slim-line version. (8.3)
Can you imagine if you saw a Rembrandt painting of yourself? We have to admit: we're a little jealous. It seems like it would so cool, if also a little unnerving. Here we see Jacob moved by this near-mirror image of himself.
Quote #5
No picture he had ever seen had so absorbed and fixated him. He did not want to say this but made himself say yes. (8.21)
Jacob might love Anne Frank, but he's never felt this way about a painting before. Plus, Daan takes him to see Rembrandt's work as a way of sharing something deeply meaningful to himself with Jacob, which is pretty sweet in its own right—this is Daan opening up to Jacob.
Quote #6
"That's one reason why I love Rembrandt. His truthfulness. Always honest. Loves people and loves them just as they are. Never afraid of life as it is." (8.46)
Okay. Daan has just admitted that Rembrandt loved painting his son as something else—a monk or Paul the apostle—but that he loves how truth can still come out of the painting, even when someone is disguised as someone else. If that's not a cool trick, then we don't know what is.