FLANDERS
❚In the 17th century, Flanders remained Catholic and under Spanish control. Flemish Baroque art is
more closely tied to the Baroque art of Italy than is the art of much of the rest of northern Europe.
❚The leading Flemish painter of this era was Peter Paul Rubens, whose work and influence were
international in scope. A diplomat as well as an artist, he counted kings and queens among his
patrons and friends. His paintings of the career of Marie de’ Medici exhibit Baroque splendor
in color and ornament, and feature Rubens’s characteristic robust and foreshortened figures in
swirling motion.
DUTCH REPUBLIC
❚The Dutch Republic received official recognition of its independence from Spain in the Treaty
of Westphalia of 1648. Worldwide trade and banking brought prosperity to its predominantly
Protestant citizenry, which largely rejected church art in favor of private commissions of portraits,
genre scenes, landscapes, and still lifes.
❚Frans Hals produced innovative portraits of middle-class patrons in which a lively informality
replaced the formulaic patterns of traditional portraiture. Aelbert Cuyp and Jacob van Ruisdael
specialized in landscapes depicting specific places, not idealized Renaissance settings. Pieter Claesz,
Willem Kalf, and others painted vanitas still lifes featuring meticulous depictions of worldly goods
and reminders of death.
❚Rembrandt van Rijn, the greatest Dutch artist of the age, treated a broad range of subjects, including
religious themes and portraits. His oil paintings are notable for their dramatic impact and subtle
gradations of light and shade as well as the artist’s ability to convey human emotions. Rembrandt
was also a master printmaker renowned for his etchings.
❚Jan Vermeer specialized in painting Dutch families in serenely opulent homes. Vermeer’s convincing
representation of interior spaces depended in part on his employment of the camera obscura. He
was also a master of light and color and understood that shadows are not colorless.
FRANCE AND ENGLAND
❚The major art patron in 17th-century France was the Sun King, the absolutist monarch Louis XIV,
who expanded the Louvre and built a gigantic palace-and-garden complex at Versailles featuring
sumptuous furnishings and sweeping vistas. Among the architects Louis employed were Charles
Le Brun and Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who succeeded in marrying Italian Baroque and French
classical styles.
❚The leading French proponent of classical painting was Nicolas Poussin, who spent most of his
life in Rome and championed the “grand manner” of painting, which called for heroic or divine
subjects and classical compositions with figures often modeled on ancient statues.
❚Claude Lorrain, whose fame rivaled Poussin’s, specialized in classical landscapes rendered in linear
and atmospheric perspective. His compositions often incorporated ancient ruins.
❚In 17th-century England, architecture was the most important art form. Two architects who achieved
international fame were Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, who harmonized the architectural
principles of Andrea Palladio with the Italian Baroque and French classical styles.
THE BIG PICTURE
NORTHERN EUROPE,
1600 TO 1700
Rubens, Arrival of Marie de’ Medici,
1622–1625Rembrandt, Anatomy Lesson
of Dr. Tulp, 1632Vermeer, The Letter, 1666Rigaud, Louis XIV, 1701Wren, Saint Paul’s, London,
1675–1710