Books: Prudent Lover

LOVER OF LIFE—Zsolf de Harsanyi—Putnam ($3).

Lover of Life is not to be confused with Irving Stone's Lust For Life (TIME, Oct. 28, 1935), nor is it likely to be. Both are bio-novels about painters. But about living, Life-Lover Pieter Paul Rubens was measurably less hot under the ruff than Life-Luster Vincent van Gogh, and so is the tone of his story. Comfortably pneumatic as a Rubens model (678 pages), it provides an intricate semiprivate history of its period (1577-1640), a smooth survey course in Renaissance art, and a career which refreshingly breaks most...

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