Golden Age of Dutch Painting: 1600-1650

The first half of the 17th century was a rich and varied period in the newly independent Dutch provinces. Protestantism resulted in the whitewashing of former Catholic churches and the elimination of religious imagery, promoting an exciting development of new subject matter.

This course will illustrate how the Dutch Caravaggisti painters, Honthorst, ter Brugghen and Baburen brought new ideas back from Rome, while Frans Hals and Rembrandt pushed portraiture to new heights of characterisation and emotional intensity. Landscape painting, which had emerged in the South Netherlands during the 16th century as a subject in its own right, also became even more important to Dutch painters, such as Esaias van der Velde and Jan van Goyen. Marine painting came to play a new and important role, promoted by Dutch reliance upon the water.
You will also explore how still life developed in fascinating and varied ways coming to contain intriguing double meanings through the use of emblems and symbols, in a range of artists’ work, as in the flower paintings of Ambrosius Bosschaert or the powerful tonal breakfast table compositions of Clara Peeters.