On Beauty by Zadie Smith - Rembrandt

" 'Well', he said loudly, hoping to finish it off with a daunting display of academic pyrotechnics, 'what I meant was that Rembrandt is part of the seventeenth century European movement to... well, let's shorthand it - essentially invent the idea of the human.' Howard heard himself saying, all of it paraphrased from a chapter he had left upstairs, asleep on the computer screen, boring even to itself. 'And of course the corollary to that is the fallacy that we as human beings are central, and that our aesthetic sense in some way makes us central - think of the position he paints himself in, right between those two inscribed empty globes on the wall...'" ........Hmmm... Not empty anymore. ........."On Beauty" is a great novel by Zadie Smith. This parody "Pizza Boy" was part of a contest to celebrate the 402th birthday of Rembrandt. There are more here.