1.
Dutch art
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Dutch art describes the history of visual arts in the Netherlands, after the United Provinces separated from Flanders. Earlier painting in the area is covered in Early Netherlandish painting and Dutch, after the end of the Golden Age, production of paintings remained high, but ceased to influence the rest of Europe as strongly. The Hague School of the 19th century re-interpreted the range of subjects of the Golden Age in contemporary terms, Amsterdam Impressionism had a mainly local impact, but the De Stijl movement, of which Mondrian was a member, was influential abroad. Dutch Golden Age painting was among the most acclaimed in the world at the time, there was an enormous output of painting, so much so that prices declined seriously during the period. From the 1620s, Dutch painting broke decisively from the Baroque style typified by Rubens in neighboring Flanders into a realistic style of depiction. Types of paintings included historical paintings, portraiture, landscapes and cityscapes, still lifes, in the last four of these categories, Dutch painters established styles upon which art in Europe depended for the next two centuries. Paintings often had a moralistic subtext, the Golden Age never really recovered from the French invasion of 1671, although there was a twilight period lasting until about 1710. Dutch painters, especially in the provinces, tried to evoke emotions in the spectator by letting him/her be a bystander to a scene of profound intimacy. Portrait painting thrived in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, many portraits were commissioned by wealthy individuals. Group portraits similarly were often ordered by prominent members of a civilian guard, by boards of trustees and regents. Often group portraits were paid for by each portrayed person individually, the amount paid determined each persons place in the picture, either head to toe in full regalia in the foreground or face only in the back of the group. Sometimes all group members paid a sum, which was likely to lead to quarrels when some members gained a more prominent place in the picture than others. Allegories, in which painted objects conveyed symbolic meaning about the subject, were often applied, favourite topics in Dutch landscapes were the dunes along the western sea coast, rivers with their broad adjoining meadows where cattle grazed, often a silhouette of a city in the distance. Rembrandt had by 1631 established such a reputation that he received several assignments for portraits from Amsterdam. In about 1640, his work became more sober, reflecting the family tragedies that he had suffered, exuberance was replaced by more sincere emotions. Biblical scenes were now derived more often from the New Testament instead of the Old Testament, one of his most famous paintings is The Night Watch, which was completed in 1642, at the peak of Hollands golden age. The painting was commissioned to be hung in the hall of the newly-built Kloveniersdoelen in Amsterdam. Johannes Vermeers works are admired for their transparent colors, careful composition, vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes, and even his two known landscapes are framed with a window
2.
Early Netherlandish painting
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Their work follows the International Gothic style and begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the early 1420s. It lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523, the major Netherlandish painters include Campin, van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts, Petrus Christus, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes and Hieronymus Bosch. These artists made significant advances in natural representation and illusionism, and their subjects are usually religious scenes or small portraits, with narrative painting or mythological subjects being relatively rare. Landscape is often richly described but relegated as a background detail before the early 16th century, the painted works are generally oil on panel, either as single works or more complex portable or fixed altarpieces in the form of diptychs, triptychs or polyptychs. The period is noted for its sculpture, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass. Assisted by the system, panels and a variety of crafts were sold to foreign princes or merchants through private engagement or market stalls. A majority were destroyed during waves of iconoclasm in the 16th and 17th centuries, Early northern art in general was not well regarded from the early 17th to the mid-19th century, and the painters and their works were not well documented until the mid-19th century. Art historians spent almost another century determining attributions, studying iconography, attribution of some of the most significant works is still debated. These artists became a driving force behind the Northern Renaissance. In this political and art-historical context, the north follows the Burgundian lands which straddled areas that encompass parts of modern France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlandish artists have been known by a variety of terms. Late Gothic is a designation which emphasises continuity with the art of the Middle Ages. In the early 20th century, the artists were variously referred to in English as the Ghent-Bruges school or the Old Netherlandish school. In this context, primitive does not refer to a lack of sophistication. When the Burgundian dukes established centres of power in the Netherlands, in the 19th century the Early Netherlandish artists were classified by nationality, with Jan van Eyck identified as German and van der Weyden as French. Scholars were at times preoccupied as to whether the schools genesis was in France or Germany, in the 14th century, as Gothic art gave way to the International Gothic era, a number of schools developed in northern Europe. Early Netherlandish art originated in French courtly art, and is tied to the tradition. Modern art historians see the era as beginning with 14th-century manuscript illuminators and this patronage continued in the low countries with the Burgundian dukes, Philip the Good and his son Charles the Bold. The demand for illuminated manuscripts declined towards the end of the century, following van Eycks innovations, the first generation of Netherlandish painters emphasised light and shadow, elements usually absent from 14th-century illuminated manuscripts
3.
Northern Mannerism
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Northern Mannerism is the form of Mannerism found in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th centuries. The three main centres of the style were in France, especially in the period 1530–50, in Prague from 1576, and in the Netherlands from the 1580s—the first two phases very much led by royal patronage. In the last 15 years of the century, the style, by then becoming outdated in Italy, was widespread across northern Europe, in Northern Europe, however, such artists, and such an audience, could hardly be found. Romanism was more influenced by Italian art of the High Renaissance, and aspects of Mannerism. The most notable imports were Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio, Niccolò dellAbbate and this conjunction succeeded in generating a native French style with strong Mannerist elements that was then able to develop largely on its own. Her slim, long-legged and athletic figure became fixed in the erotic imaginary, high-style walnut furniture made in metropolitan centers like Paris and Dijon, employed strapwork framing and sculptural supports in dressoirs and buffets. The mysterious and sophisticated Saint-Porchaire ware, of only about sixty pieces survive. Apart from the Palace of Fontainebleau itself, other important buildings decorated in the style were the Château dAnet for Diane de Poitiers, and parts of the Palais du Louvre. After an interlude when work on Fontainebleau was abandoned at the height of the French Wars of Religion, maximilians son, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor was to prove an even better patron than his father would have been, and Spranger never left his service. Works from Rudolfs Prague were highly finished and refined, with most paintings being relatively small, Rudolf also commissioned work from Italy, above all from Giambologna, who the Medicis would not allow to leave Florence, and four great mythological allegories were sent by Paolo Veronese. The Emperors influence affected art in other German courts, notably Munich, Rudolf was not very interested in religion, and in the Prague of Rudolf II, an explosion of mythological imagery was produced that had not been seen since Fontainebleau. Goddesses were usually naked, or nearly so, and a more overt atmosphere of eroticism prevails than is found in most Renaissance mythological works, the dominating figure was Hercules, identified with the emperor, as he had earlier been with earlier Habsburg and Valois monarchs. It seems, however, that the painted allegories from Prague contain neither very specific complicated meanings, Giambologna frequently chose, or let someone else choose, a title for his sculptures after their completion, for him it was only the forms that mattered. From this time on he no longer made prints after Sprangers extravaganzas, the monstrous muscle-men and over-elongated female nudes with tiny heads. Were replaced by figures with more normal proportions and movements, after his return from Italy Goltzius moved to a quieter proto-Baroque classicism, and his work in that style influenced many. Unlike many, notably his fellow Utrechter Abraham Bloemaert, once Wtewaels repertoire of styles was formed, Bloemaert painted many landscapes reconciling these types by combining close-up trees, with figures, and a small distant view from above to one side. Such subjects appealed to both aristocratic patrons and the market, which was far larger in the Netherlands. This was especially so in the Protestant north, after the movement of populations in the Revolt, karel van Mander is now remembered mainly as a writer on art rather than an artist
4.
Dutch Golden Age painting
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The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade, science, and art. Most work, including that for which the period is best known, a distinctive feature of the period is the proliferation of distinct genres of paintings, with the majority of artists producing the bulk of their work within one of these. The full development of specialization is seen from the late 1620s. A distinctive feature of the period, compared to earlier European painting, was the amount of religious painting. Dutch Calvinism forbade religious painting in churches, and though biblical subjects were acceptable in private homes, the development of many of these types of painting was decisively influenced by 17th-century Dutch artists. The widely held theory of the hierarchy of genres in painting, whereby some types were regarded as more prestigious than others, however this was the hardest to sell, as even Rembrandt found. Many were forced to produce portraits or genre scenes, which much more easily. In descending order of status the categories in the hierarchy were, history painting, including allegories, most paintings were relatively small – the only common type of really large paintings were group portraits. Painting directly onto walls hardly existed, when a wall-space in a public building needed decorating fitted framed canvas was normally used, painted delftware tiles were very cheap and common, if rarely of really high quality, but silver, especially in the auricular style, led Europe. With this exception, the best artistic efforts were concentrated on painting and printmaking, the volume of production meant that prices were fairly low, except for the best known artists, as in most subsequent periods there was a steep price gradient for more fashionable artists. In particular the French invasion of 1672, brought a depression to the art market. The distribution of pictures was very wide, yea many tymes, blacksmithes, cobblers etts. will have some picture or other by their Forge, such is the generall Notion, enclination and delight that these Countrie Native have to Painting reported an English traveller in 1640. There were for virtually the first time many professional art dealers, several significant artists, like Vermeer and his father, Jan van Goyen. Rembrandts dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh and his son Gerrit were among the most important, typically workshops were smaller than in Flanders or Italy, with only one or two apprentices at a time, the number often being restricted by guild regulations. In many cases involved the artists extricating themselves from medieval groupings where they shared a guild with several other trades. Several new guilds were established in the period, Amsterdam in 1579, Haarlem in 1590, the Leiden authorities distrusted guilds and did not allow one until 1648. The Hague, with the court, was an early example, there were many dynasties of artists, and many married the daughters of their masters or other artists. Many artists came from families, who paid fees for their apprenticeships
5.
Flemish Baroque painting
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Flemish Baroque painting refers to the art produced in the Southern Netherlands during Spanish control in the 16th and 17th centuries. Antwerp, home to the prominent artists Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Rubens, in particular, had a strong influence on seventeenth-century visual culture. By the seventeenth century, however, Antwerp was the city for innovative artistic production. Brussels was important as the location of the court, attracting David Teniers the Younger later in the century, between 1585 and the early 17th century they made many new altarpieces to replace those destroyed during the iconoclastic outbreaks of 1566. Also during this time Frans Francken the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder became important for their small cabinet paintings, often depicting mythological and history subjects. Following his return to Antwerp he set up an important studio, training such as Anthony van Dyck. Most artists active in the city during the first half of the 17th century were influenced by Rubens. Flemish art is notable for the amount of collaboration that took place between independent masters, which was partly related to the local tendency to specialize in a particular area. Frans Snyders, for example, was a painter and Jan Brueghel the Elder was admired for his landscapes. Both artists worked with Rubens, who often painted the figures. In Antwerp, however, this new genre also developed into a specifically Catholic type of painting, history painting, which includes biblical, mythological and historical subjects, was considered by seventeenth-century theoreticians as the most noble art. Abraham Janssens was an important history painter in Antwerp between 1600 and 1620, although after 1609 Rubens was the leading figure, both Van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens were active painting monumental history scenes. Following Rubenss death, Jordaens became the most important Flemish painter, during the second half of the century, history painters combined a local influence from Rubens with knowledge of classicism and Italian Baroque qualities. Artists in the vein include Erasmus Quellinus the Younger, Jan van den Hoecke, Pieter van Lint, Cornelis Schut, later in the century, many painters turned to Anthony van Dyck as a major influence. Among them were Pieter Thijs, Lucas Franchoys the Younger, and artists who were inspired by Late Baroque theatricality such as Theodoor Boeyermans. Additionally, a Flemish variant of Caravaggism was expressed by Theodoor Rombouts, Rubens is closely associated with the development of the Baroque altarpiece. He also exerted an influence on Baroque portraiture through his student Anthony van Dyck. Van Dyck became court painter for Charles I of England and was influential on subsequent English portraiture, other successful portraitists include Cornelis de Vos and Jacob Jordaens
6.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
7.
Renaissance art
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Renaissance art, with Renaissance Humanist philosophy, spread throughout Europe, affecting both artists and their patrons with the development of new techniques and new artistic sensibilities. Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the period to the Early Modern age. In many parts of Europe, Early Renaissance art was created in parallel with Late Medieval art, the following list presents a summary, dealt with more fully in the main articles that are cited above. Classical texts, lost to European scholars for centuries, became available and these included Philosophy, Prose, Poetry, Drama, Science, a thesis on the Arts and Early Christian Theology. Simultaneously, Europe gained access to advanced mathematics which had its provenance in the works of Islamic scholars, the advent of movable type printing in the 15th century meant that ideas could be disseminated easily, and an increasing number of books were written for a broad public. The establishment of the Medici Bank and the subsequent trade it generated brought unprecedented wealth to a single Italian city, cosimo de Medici set a new standard for patronage of the arts, not associated with the church or monarchy. Humanist philosophy meant that mans relationship with humanity, the universe, a revived interest in the Classics brought about the first archaeological study of Roman remains by the architect Brunelleschi and sculptor Donatello. A similar heritage of artistic achievement occurred in Venice through the talented Bellini family, their influential inlaw Mantegna, Giorgione, Titian, the publication of two treatises by Leone Battista Alberti, De Pitura,1435, and De re aedificatoria,1452. Their masterpieces are the pulpits of the Baptistery and Cathedral of Pisa, the painters of the Low Countries at this period included Jan van Eyck, his brother Hubert van Eyck, Robert Campin, Hans Memling, Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes. Their painting developed independently of Early Italian Renaissance painting, and without the influence of a deliberate, the style of painting grew directly out of the Medieval arts of tempera painting, stained glass and book illumination. The media used was oil paint, which had long been utilised for painting leather ceremonial shields and accoutrements, because it was flexible, the earliest Netherlandish oil paintings are meticulous and detailed like tempera paintings. The material lent itself to the depiction of variations and texture. The Netherlandish painters did not approach the creation of a picture through a framework of linear perspective and they maintained a Medieval view of hierarchical proportion and religious symbolism, while delighting in a realistic treatment of material elements, both natural and man-made. Jan van Eyck, with his brother Hubert painted The Altarpiece of the Mystical Lamb and it is probable that Antonello da Messina became familiar with Van Eycks work, while in Naples or Sicily. His studies of perspective are thought to have influenced the painter Masaccio, the contemporary of Donatello, Masaccio, was the painterly descendant of Giotto, furthering the trend towards solidity of form and naturalism of face and gesture that he had begun a century earlier. Masaccios developments were carried forward in the paintings of Fra Angelico, the treatment of the elements of perspective and light in painting was of particular concern to 15th-century Florentine painters. Uccello was so obsessed with trying to achieve an appearance of perspective that, according to Vasari and his solutions can be seen in his masterpiece, the Battle of San Romano. In Naples, the painter Antonello da Messina began using oil paints for portraits and religious paintings at a date that preceded other Italian painters and he carried this technique north and influenced the painters of Venice
8.
Baroque painting
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Baroque painting is the painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement. Baroque art was meant to evoke emotion and passion instead of the rationality that had been prized during the Renaissance. Among the greatest painters of the Baroque period are Velázquez, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, Poussin, Caravaggio is an heir of the humanist painting of the High Renaissance. Baroque painting often dramatizes scenes using light effects, this can be seen in works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Le Nain. The Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck developed a graceful but imposing portrait style that was very influential, technical standards were very high, and Dutch Golden Age painting established a new repertoire of subjects that was very influential until the arrival of Modernism. The term Baroque was initially used with a meaning, to underline the excesses of its emphasis. Others derive it from the mnemonic term Baroco denoting, in logical Scholastica, in particular, the term was used to describe its eccentric redundancy and noisy abundance of details, which sharply contrasted the clear and sober rationality of the Renaissance. He did not make the distinctions between Mannerism and Baroque that modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Writers in French and English did not begin to treat Baroque as a respectable study until Wölfflins influence had made German scholarship pre-eminent. Led by Italy, Mediterranean countries, slowly followed by most of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany and Central Europe, while the Baroque nature of Rembrandts art is clear, the label is less use for Vermeer and many other Dutch artists. In France a dignified and graceful classicism gave a distinctive flavour to Baroque painting, likeness and Presence, A History of the Image before the Era of Art. Mark Getlein, Living With Art, 8th edition, the Story of Art, Phaidon,1995. ISBN 0-7148-3355-X Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Baroque Reason, The Aesthetics of Modernity, the Age of Baroque Heinrich Wölfflin,1964. Renaissance and Baroque The classic study
9.
Dutch Republic
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It preceded the Batavian Republic, the Kingdom of Holland, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and ultimately the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands. Alternative names include the United Provinces, Seven Provinces, Federated Dutch Provinces, most of the Low Countries had come under the rule of the House of Burgundy and subsequently the House of Habsburg. In 1549 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V issued the Pragmatic Sanction, Charles was succeeded by his son, King Philip II of Spain. This was the start of the Eighty Years War, in 1579 a number of the northern provinces of the Low Countries signed the Union of Utrecht, in which they promised to support each other in their defence against the Spanish army. This was followed in 1581 by the Act of Abjuration, the declaration of independence of the provinces from Philip II. In 1582 the United Provinces invited Francis, Duke of Anjou to lead them, but after an attempt to take Antwerp in 1583. After the assassination of William of Orange, both Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England declined the offer of sovereignty, however, the latter agreed to turn the United Provinces into a protectorate of England, and sent the Earl of Leicester as governor-general. This was unsuccessful and in 1588 the provinces became a confederacy, the Union of Utrecht is regarded as the foundation of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, which was not recognized by the Spanish Empire until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. During the Anglo-French war, the territory was divided into groups, the Patriots, who were pro-French and pro-American and the Orangists. The Republic of the United Provinces faced a series of revolutions in 1783–1787. During this period, republican forces occupied several major Dutch cities, initially on the defence, the Orangist forces received aid from Prussian troops and retook the Netherlands in 1787. After the French Republic became the French Empire under Napoleon, the Batavian Republic was replaced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland, the Netherlands regained independence from France in 1813. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 the names United Provinces of the Netherlands, on 16 March 1815, the son of stadtholder William V crowned himself King William I of the Netherlands. Between 1815 and 1890 the King of the Netherlands was also in a union the Grand Duke of the sovereign Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. After Belgium gained its independence in 1830, the state became known as the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The County of Holland was the wealthiest and most urbanized region in the world, the free trade spirit of the time received a strong augmentation through the development of a modern, effective stock market in the Low Countries. The Netherlands has the oldest stock exchange in the world, founded in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company, while Rotterdam has the oldest bourse in the Netherlands, the worlds first stock exchange, that of the Dutch East-India Company, went public in six different cities. Later, a court ruled that the company had to reside legally in a city so Amsterdam is recognized as the oldest such institution based on modern trading principles
10.
Old Master
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In art history, Old Master refers to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An old master print is a print made by an artist in the same period. The term old master drawing is used in the same way, therefore, beyond a certain level of competence, date rather than quality is the criterion for using the term. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as A pre-eminent artist of the period before the modern, a pre-eminent western European painter of the 13th to 18th centuries. The term is used to refer to a painting or sculpture made by an Old Master. Les Maitres dautrefois of 1876 by Eugene Fromentin may have helped to popularize the concept, the collection in the Dresden museum essentially stops at the Baroque period. The end date is necessarily vague – for example, Goya is certainly an Old Master, the term might also be used for John Constable or Eugène Delacroix, but usually is not. The term tends to be avoided by art historians as too vague, especially when discussing paintings, although the terms Old Master Prints and it remains current in the art trade. Auction houses still usually divide their sales between, for example, Old Master Paintings, Nineteenth-century paintings and Modern paintings, christies defines the term as ranging from the 14th to the early 19th century. S. Master of Flémalle, Master of Mary of Burgundy, Master of Latin 757, Master of the Brunswick Diptych or Master of Schloss Lichtenstein
