Dutch Golden Age Painting

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c. 1600 – 1700 · Europe · painting · origin: Haarlem

Painting for the burgher's parlour: portrait, landscape, still life and genre instead of altarpieces

How to recognise it

• Small canvases for homes, not churches
• Interiors lit by a window on the left
• Group portraits of guilds and militia
• Low horizons under vast cloudy skies
• Still lifes with glasses, lemons, watches

Why it emerged

The Calvinist Dutch Republic, freed from Spain, commissioned few church images, but citizens enriched by trade bought paintings on an open market. Competition among thousands of painters led to narrow specialisation by genre.

Examples

The Laughing Cavalier1624 · Frans HalsHals' loose, visible brushwork gave portraits a liveliness the Impressionists later prizedThe Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp1632 · RembrandtA group portrait turned into drama round a dissection; it made Rembrandt's name in AmsterdamThe Night Watch1642 · RembrandtA militia company in motion instead of a static row: the Netherlands' most famous paintingThe Milkmaidc. 1658 · Johannes VermeerA maid pouring milk is painted with the dignity of an altarpiece figureGirl with a Pearl Earringc. 1665 · Johannes VermeerNot a portrait but a tronie, a study of a turbaned head; nicknamed the Mona Lisa of the North

More in this style

• c. 1655 The Jewish Cemetery — Jacob van Ruisdael

Meanwhile elsewhere

• Ife and Benin bronzes Africa
• Persian miniature Middle East
• Ming and Qing Porcelain Asia
• Italian Renaissance Europe
• Classical Ottoman Architecture (Sinan) Middle East
• Mannerism Europe
• Mughal Art Asia
• Tented Churches Eastern Europe & Russia
• Baroque Europe
• Latin American Baroque Americas
• Ukiyo-e Asia
• Naryshkin Baroque Eastern Europe & Russia

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