Essay The Art of the Dutch Republic

In today’s society, we are constantly being bombarded with visual art forms. Whether they be classical paintings from the Renaissance, a towering and modern skyscraper, or even a cheesy 90’s R&B music video, they all have one thing in common. According to Carolyn Dean’s definition, these would all fall under the category of “art by intention.” In her essay “The Trouble with (The Term) Art” she advocates a distinction between art by intention and what she deems “art by appropriation.” The difference is that one work was created with the intention of being consumed for visual pleasure, while the other was not. However having been educated in the Western school of thought, many art historians cannot help but project their rigid definition of art onto civilizations that may have

Kleiner writes in the textbook, “As many as 500 ships a day passed through Antwerp’s harbor and large trading companies from England, The Hold Roman Empire, Italy, Portugal, and Spain established themselves in the city” (288). This tells us that there were a lot of people from other countries and places coming through the Netherlands port. These people brought their own influences to the art culture in the Netherlands. Just as the need for grace and painting of religious figures was important in the Netherlands, it was also prominent in these other

Required Text: Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings, eds. Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, University of California Press, 1996.

Christ Blessing, Surrounded by a Donor Family (1573-1582) offers valuable insight into a changing European landscape during the sixteenth century. The Protestant Reformation, which reached its climax during this era, rejected many aspects of Catholicism. Among other things, Protestants believed that each individual should read the Bible and develop a meaningful connection to G-d rather than limiting the Bible to the clergy’s interpretation.1 This Protestant belief and other tenets of the Reformers are evident in the Reformation’s art. Christ Blessing, Surrounded by a Donor Family demonstrates the manner in which the cultural shift from Catholicism to Protestantism in Northern Europe during the Reformation was reflected in that era’s art.

Many people have concluded that Steen’s money problems stemmed from his dissolute lifestyle. However, during that time the second Anglo-Dutch war had broken out causing a severe drop in the art market (Chapman, 1996). The post-reformation society seemingly obsessed with purity, justice, and goodness seemed to suffer a blow to its heavenly façade when corruption among some of the most prominent leaders of society was exposed. In 1673 William III and the Deventer fathers were found to be corrupt and traitorous to the Dutch Republic (Kunzle, 2000). These men were meant to be the epitome of what it meant to be Dutch. They were meant to be symbols of temperance, virtue, and justice and were often related to Scipio Africanus, a Roman general (Kunzle, 2000). Scipio was a popular subject matter in art, especially in 17th century Holland. During this time the middle class became the major patrons of art. The Netherlands had just declared their independence from Spain and wanted paintings reflecting their new Dutch identity (Shaw-Eagle, 1996). Many artists gained fame by doing genre paintings such as scenes from everyday life. The years earlier had shown the public’s desire for genre and history painting (Meagher, 2000). Some, took old stories of

In this selection of the book, Gitlin discusses a seventeenth-century Dutch painter by the name of Vermeer. Vermeer was known for being able to”fr[ee]ze instants, but instants that spoke of the relative constancy of the world in which his subjects lived” (Gitlin 558). People collected Vermeer’s paintings for display throughout their homes. Gitlin sees Vermeer as the seventeenth-century version of the media. In that time, the images painted were relative to the people’s era and private world. In today’s world Vermeer would be the equivalent to a celebrity photographer or movie director. If Vermeer, or any other artist of his time, were to see today’s households, they would find that the once private space inside the home is now much more dominated by images of the outside world than what would have been possible in the 1600’s.

Dutch art created during the span of 1610 to 1630 display a vast array of thematic categories. These categories include portraiture, genre, landscape, and history paintings. In spite of such diversity towards subject matter, the artworks all have certain characteristics in common with each other. Three of the shared, underlying principles are an Italian influence, sense of attributing traits to the figures to increase relatability, and emphasis on the humble.

Throughout the Renaissance, many talented artists tried to express deep symbolism in their paintings, but no one came close to the ability of Jan Van Eyck. His paintings were so accurate and realistic that it was necessary for him to paint his miniaturists with a single strand of hair, on a brush. Jan's Arnolfini Wedding Portrait (1434) is so photo-realistic that it has been debated for decades of it's legality of a wedding document. This paper will help to understand Jan's extreme use of symbolisms and the multiple meanings of his Arnolfini wedding scene.

Unassuming, Murray eases the audience into the content of the lecture. She begins with general interests sited across her writing. Enthused by the specificity of a place, culture and society at a point in time, she unpacks how she translates a history to an audience who have experienced a society and culture that is dissimilar in its respective displacement of time. Murray points to the use of ‘texture’ in her writing as a gesture used to the forge authenticity of a place in history. To the audience, it conveys an understanding that is closer to one of experience than scholarly. To Murray, ‘texture’ exposes readers to the voice and words, extracted from and specific to a place and society in an attempt to guide a nuanced understanding at that point in history. An accent that has evolved over time or specific to a class, a quote, an object or words that were common place, now seldom heard of, are a powerful tool in Murray’s writing to communicate what otherwise cannot be expressed. These moments, extracted from history, are inevitably experienced in the research of an art history writer. For the purpose of the reader, Murray intends to carry through key moments as what she describes ‘capsules’ of history in her writing.

I have chosen to compare two paintings for my final paper; the first is from the Neoclassical movement while the other is from the Romanticism movement. The Neoclassical painting is The Death of Socrates (1787) by Jacques-Louis David and the Romantic painting is The Death of Sardanapalus (1827) by Eugene Delacroix. While both paintings reflect on heroic themes, they are captured on canvas in very different ways. Represented here is one movement that looked to break from classical perspectives while the other attempts to give life back the classical styles. The purpose of this paper will be to define the differences between paintings from the Neoclassic and Romantic movements and discover how the use of colors and light can change the look

The Dutch Revolt reading discusses the time of the Spanish inquisition and the inquisitors’ power over Spain. This article is more of a historical essay than a theoretical one, like the second reading of John Locke. The first reading discusses the political struggles between 1568- 1648, where under the rule of King V’s son Philip II, the society suffered from the tyranny of the monarchy. Under this rule, religion (Christianity) was forcibly imposed on the people. People were deprived from their own freedom by priests and clergy men, who had given themselves the power to control as if they were the king themselves. They justified their actions by claiming they were for religious purposes. There were revolts and complaints, but none were heard.

The contrasts and differences between a 17th century Dutch golden age painting about the virtues of hospitality, and a 16th century Renaissance painting whose whole structure seems to create a virtue of vanity are numerous. Rembrandt, the Dutch master behind the painting “Philemon and Baucis” was known for his use of compassion in the choice of subject matter and portrayal of who he considered the truly virtuous among us. Titian, the Renaissance painter behind “Venus with a Mirror”, was widely admired for his ability to paint a tremendous breadth of subjects. While both paintings rely on non-Christian themes, they contain vastly different color palates, usage of light as a tool to engage the viewer, portrayal of human form and handling and style of painting to transmit emotion.

Within 1650 to 1713 the Dutch Republic underwent a formidable transformation, which changed its status as a major influence in Europe. The Dutch Republic was a political union of seven provinces that was not only an impressive banking and commercial capital, but the Dutch also had a great navy as well. Additionally, the center of flourishment in the Dutch Republic was Amsterdam, which was the foremost trading and banking center in all of Europe. The changing environment of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries forced the Dutch Republic into a position of conflict and unbalance, which proved detrimental to their country as a whole. One of the first challenges to the Dutch Republic dealt with military and how countries, such as

Whether Mona Lisa is smiling or not has become one of the most interesting debates in the world. Some artists think the facial expression of Mona Lisa is smiling, the others, nevertheless, believe it is only an expressionless face with a hollow stare. Why this happened is not a weird phenomenon. One often judges a thing with her/his personal experiences, and distinct experiences make different individuals generate diverse ideas, just like Shakespeare’s words, “there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes”. Furthermore, art is the product of people’s thoughts in different periods, and painting is one manifestation of art because every product reflects the contemporary religious thoughts and historical activities. Someone who appreciates a painting would not only relate to historical period but also combine the modern ideas. Thus, when people enjoy a painting, they always have different opinions with others because everyone sees a different world. To analyze a painting needs to focus on many factors, like color differences, expression of facial emotions, and pose overlooking. Therefore, two paintings which are Saint Paul the Hermit and Saint Jerome can be distinguished in terms of three aspects, different color of paintings, unlike facial expressions, and same living environment in the painting.

Also there are lots of artists like the Golden Boy Rembrandt and lots more, but a very big difference between our artists and the artists in France is that our artists can paint for more people not only the church, they could paint for the Regenten or for people with enough money to pay them, of course that doesn’t assure you to become some kind of superstar for appearing in a Rembrandt painting because you might not appear in the front or even be seen. The Dutch Republic is also widely known for the smartness and intelligence of the Dutch and their people, they most probably have a very high IQ :). They are very smart because they really like learning and they learn a lot and their intelligence and open mindedness makes them learn faster and more things in the same time as other people might learn half what they learn in the same time because they are really open minded and they are also very intelligent and creative. Also people really like each other in the Dutch Republic and they get really well with each other, they don’t care if they are jewish or muslim or christian or of any religion, they treat them the same way as they treat their