The Dutch Century

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.

The Dutch West India Company settled New Netherlands, and the Dutch bought Manhattan. New Netherland was aristocratic and feudal.

If we skip back a little, in the first chapter of Vermeer’s Hat: The seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, Brook discusses Vermeer's first painting, View of Delft. This painting is one of the only outdoor scenes Vermeer had painted that is still in existence. The first window Brook opens for his readers in this painting is a view of the city of Delft. This painting shows the river harbor in Delft. Brook first uses the herring buses in this painting to open a window into the seventeenth century. Herring buses Timothy Brook states herring buses in Vermeer's Hat, are, "three-masted vessels built to fish for herring in the North Sea" (12). The herring buses give Timothy Brook a window to talk about the climate change and sickness in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In these two centuries, the temperatures were falling all over the world, creating increased sickness and shorter crop seasons. In Vermeer's Hat, Brook says that the two herring boats in the painting are evidence of climate change. Brook also uses Vermeer to talk about the exchanges in the seventeenth century. He states that one of the benefits of the climate changing was the southward

Beginning with Vermeer’s painting called View of Delft, done in 1661, this painting done in oil paints shows a landscape scene from a port. The painting takes place in Vermeer’s hometown of Delft in the Netherlands and depicts a scene from his daily life. One of the first things that the author points out about

In 1625, the Dutch West India Company founded New Amsterdam. The Dutch bought the land from the Manhattan Indians and made the land into farms. Everything on the land was owned by the company and was leased to tenants; this included buildings, windmills for grinding grain, and livestock. By 1639, the community spoke thirteen different languages and built a “burgher government” led by Peter Stuyvesant. In 1664 the English took over New Amsterdam but the Dutch government was not completely out until November 10th of 1674.

During Dutch rule, the Dutch West India Company primary goal was to make a profit of New Amsterdam. Thus for this reason there were said to be “eighteen different languages that could be heard on the streets as early as 1644” (Jackson and Dunbar 18). The many different languages in a town in its infancy shows the Dutch’s eagerness for profit and the diversity from a very early establishment. From then on diversity became more like a “custom”, meaning a widely accepted way for the settlement of New Amsterdam. Another example of diversity during Dutch rule is, “Gotham becoming the largest Jewish city in the world” (Jackson and Dunbar 31). Gotham, New Amsterdam, became a household for many religions and cultures especially the minorities who came

Two of the most extensively analyzed works of art are Diego Velasquez's Las Meninas and Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Double Portrait. Both of these artist's talent won them recognition not only during their lifetime but after as well. Both Velasquez and Van Eyck have a justly earned title as the most talented artists of their respective times. A detailed examination of the details and intricacies of these artist's respective masterpieces, their similarities, and what sets them apart not just from each other but from other paintings from their time period and style, will lead the viewer to a better understanding of the mentalities of these gifted artists and how they transcend their respective genres and contemporaries to create their own

The works of Jan Van Eyck and Jan Vermeer have been long celebrated as pinnacles of Northern Renaissance and Baroque art respectively. Historians continue to ponder the iconographic messages within the enigmatic oeuvres of these artists, particularly emphasizing religious symbolism and hidden meanings. Van Eyck and Vermeer were both products of the rich painting traditions of the Netherlands in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. As a result, their works share both similar and distinct societal, economic, and religious influences. Although these factors interconnect and impact each other, religion was Van Eyck's primary focus, while Vermeer emphasized societal concerns.

Prior to taking this course, my understanding how the world functioned before the 18th century was vague. There were a few topics I knew a bit about; however, not enough to write a scholarly work on. That being said, I was like one of the bystanders watching the fight as it unfolded. I could only make an analysis on what I knew and that was not a lot. The knowledge gained so far from this course truly opened my eyes why many of the world’s institutions existed, or existed to this day. For example, much was known about the cash crop known as cotton and the impact it had on America, but what was not known was how it truly circulated throughout the world and in essence, made the world go ‘round. Yes, cotton was a driving force which helped set up the America’s market. Moreover, it also did the same for the creation of, what historians call, the “global economy”. The Atlantic Slave Trade affected so many nations and people outside of the western hemisphere, that it is only right to have an adequate understanding as to how this transformative process came into full effect. Truthfully, it is very elementary to believe the world did not already have trade routes set up prior to the insurgence of plantation slavery.

Germany’s late eighteenth-century Industrial Revolution transformed her economies from agricultural to manufacturing. Proving problematic for the nations’ farmers, and the promise of unlimited farmland in America led to millions of Germans immigrating in the nineteenth-century. Mostly farmers, bringing superior agronomy and husbandry skills to the American Midwest, significantly influenced the region’s growing agricultural development. Later, “writing letters to family and friends in Germany”, early immigrants sharing success stories, lured prominent German entrepreneurs to the Midwest, building prosperous businesses.

In the 17th century, Holland, with its tiny population of c. 2million people, was ranked among the leading countries for trade and science, in the world. During this period, known as the “Dutch Golden Age” the art world flourished as the Dutch bourgeois with their wealth and appreciation of art commissioned paintings of themselves, family and country. Painters also began exploring new forms and content with new treatments of architectural volumes, interplay of light and perspective, elegant worlds, traditional portraiture and still life painting.

Pieter de Hooch has humble origins. In 1629, he was born in Rotterdam in a butcher’s family. Receiving his early training under Ludolph de Jongh in Rotterdam, De Hooch later served his apprenticeship under the landscape painter Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem in Haarlem. He is recorded as a painter and footman to a wealthy merchant-adventurer Justus de la Grange in 1653. In 1654, he married Jannetje van der Burch of Delft, and later he had seven children. Moving to Delft after his marriage, he was registered with the Delft guild and became an independent artist in 1655. During the years in Delft, he produced his most characteristic works. In 1661, he moved to Amsterdam and remained there for the rest of his life. De Hooch’s three periods in Rotterdam, Delft, and Haarlem represent his three phases in painting with gradually maturer artistry. This paper uses De Hooch’s The Visit, a transitional work that was executed in 1657, his early Delft period, as a case study to examine the development in De Hooch’s artistic style in terms of the scene, composition and perspective.

The following paper is going to be focused on the work (and comparison of it) of the two, while relatively unknown to the public, but nevertheless fine artists of their time: Gabriel de Saint-Aubin and Adriaen van de Venne, whose paintings “Merry Company in an Arbor” (dated to 1615) and “Country Dance” (dated to approximately 1760-1762) I had the pleasure of observing at the J. Paul Getty Museum. “Merry Company” is a typical representative of the Dutch Golden Age paintings with the theme being a group of

During the 17th century, especially after their break from Spain, The United Provinces of the Netherlands became the most prosperous nation in Europe by leading the world in trade, science, and art. Through the huge and one of the first art markets, art became a common household possession and allowed artists to freely express themselves, which is one of the evidential factors in three of the most universally admired artists of the baroque art era. Rubens, an influential Flemish artist of the Italian baroque scene, focused more on the works of the counter-reformation while the masters of the Dutch baroque art, such as Rembrandt, were in the heart of the protestant Dutch Republic. These three artists share similar artistic styles but yet have extremely evident differences and influences. The artists’ work also have a great portrayal of the historical and social impacts of the 17th century.

The nation of Indonesia has barely had independence for less than a hundred years. Before the Japanese captured the country; Indonesia was in the control of the Dutch for 350 years. Indonesia did not receive its independence till December 1949. Why did the Dutch decide to settle land in what was commonly known as the Dutch East Indies and how were the lives of the natives affected?