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The Dutch Golden Age
As described in “Travels in Holland” and “Travels along the Highway to Karatsu, Hirado, Sasebo and Nagasaki” the Netherlands in the 17th century became one of the strongest commercial and industrial nations in the world, thanks to world trade and the development of agriculture and industry, including urban gardening (tulips), glass art, woolen goods, shipbuilding, brewing and printing. It had established a golden age.
As Ryotaro Shiba said, “The world was truly created by God, but only the Netherlands was created by the Dutch.” The Netherlands was also a Protestant country that was the first to establish autonomism, rationalism, and modern civic spirit.
On the Road to Holland Volume 35: Travels in Holland
Therefore, there were no royalty or aristocracy, and the patrons of paintings were wealthy citizens who preferred to have painters paint subjects that were more familiar to them – scenes from their daily lives, familiar landscapes, and objects (still lifes) – rather than historical paintings based on myths and biblical episodes (narrative painting) that depicted stories of distant and geographically distant places, which had been favored by the royalty and aristocracy. Rather than historical episodes (narrative paintings), which depicted stories of distant and geographically distant places, artists preferred to paint subjects that were more familiar to them: scenes from their daily lives, familiar landscapes, and objects (still life). In addition, because Protestantism forbade idolatry, there were no orders for large religious paintings from churches, and Dutch painting established its own genre within Europe.
In this article, I would like to discuss some of the painters associated with the Dutch Golden Age.
Dutch Golden Age Painters
This section describes Dutch Golden Age paintings by Dutch or foreign painters active in the Netherlands, mainly from the end of the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648), a war of independence of the Netherlandish provinces, to the 17th century (Dutch Golden Age), a period when the Netherlands had global influence.
First, one of the most representative painters is Rembrandt. The painting above is “The Night Watch,” one of Rembrandt’s representative works.
Rembrandt was born in 1606, the time of the Battle of Sekigahara in Japan, and died in 1669 at the age of 63. He was born in a wealthy miller’s house in Leiden, a city famous for its university. His parents owned a windmill to power the grinding of wheat into flour, and the windmill faced the old Rhine River that flows through Leiden, so his surname was Rijn (Dutch for Rhine: the Rhine River).
Rembrandt was the eighth child of the family. He entered Leiden University at the age of 14, dropped out after a few months, studied under several masters, and became an independent painter by the age of 19. In the Netherlands at that time, it was popular among merchants and traders to have their portraits painted by artists, and since merchants were sensitive to the shape and texture of their goods, they might say, “I can’t pay you for this,” if the picture did not resemble their face in any way. Therefore, thorough realism prevailed in 17th-century Dutch art.
Rembrandt Self-portrait
The Night Watch is on display at the back of the ground floor of the National Museum in Amsterdam, where a British critic named Charles Fowkes wrote in response to the painting
At the time, the Citizen Army (Neighborhood Watch) was no longer a fighting force, but a social club for wealthy citizens, eighteen of whom commissioned Rembrandt to make group portraits for an average fee of one hundred guilders each. Rembrandt’s portraits were not individually satisfying, but Rembrandt captured in light and shadow a group of people about to embark on a journey of purpose, most of them hidden in the pale light of the composition, or with only part of their faces visible in the crowd, and the only ones visible in full body light were the captains of the group, France Banningcock and his wife, and the two young men, France and Rembrandt. France Banningcock and his second-in-command were the only ones who were visible. This made the “Night Watch” unpopular with angry clients who did not pay.”
He stated.
Another work that definitively established Rembrandt’s reputation was “Professor Tulp’s Lectures on Anatomy.
Professor Tulp, the subject of the painting, was a famous Amsterdam surgeon whose surname, Tulp, is said to have come from the tulip, a Dutch specialty.
The young Rembrandt was recommended as the first-class painter of the time and completed a large work. It is said that the artist observed the dissection of a condemned prisoner named Alice Kindt on the top floor of the Surgeon’s Guild tower in Amsterdam with a quiet respect for the dead and painted the scene.
After Rembrandt, Vermeer is the most popular painter in Japan.
Vermeer, born in 1632, a little after Rembrandt, and died in 1675, was a painter from Delft, the Netherlands, whose paintings are characterized by their depiction of the daily life of ordinary citizens, called genre paintings. During his lifetime, he painted only between 32 and 37 pictures, and because of the small number of his works, he was forgotten until the 18th century.
In 19th century France, Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet, who depicted the daily lives of ordinary people without idealizing them, appeared, and this new trend in painting led to the birth of Impressionism later. Vermeer once again won high acclaim and popularity.
The above painting is “Girl in a Pearl Necklace,” one of Vermeer’s masterpieces. In Vermeer’s paintings, the central part of the work, such as the portrait, is depicted with precision and richness, while the surrounding objects are depicted in a simple manner, and the vivid touch of his brushwork can be seen.
The girl’s hair and earrings shine in bright dots of paint as they reflect the light coming in through the window, a technique known as pointillé, which is considered a characteristic of Vermeer’s work. The bright blue used in Vermeer’s paintings is known as “Vermeer blue.
Vermeer Self-Portrait
During the Dutch Golden Age, in addition to Rembrandt and Vermeer, France Hals, who painted merry drinkers and “gypsy women”
Van Hoogstraten, for example, who painted inside city buildings.
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