Lecture 33: Dutch Painting in the 17

th Century

Dutch Painting in the 17th Century ..................................................

Lecture 33

With Rubens, in the last lecture, as with the great Bernini before that,

we have studied artists who enjoyed the aristocratic patronage of

kings and popes, and rarely had to wonder where their next paycheck

was coming from. In Holland, the northern Netherlands, in the same

century, things were very different.

I

n this lecture, we look at the very different artistic world of the northern

Netherlands, or Holland, as it is commonly called today. Because of

political circumstances, government and religious commissions were far

less common here than in other countries. As a result, painting À ourished

in the open marketplace, where artists survived by specializing in various

genres. We will look at these speci¿ c genres and representative artists

for each.

We have studied artists, such as Rubens and Bernini, who enjoyed the

aristocratic patronage of kings and popes and rarely had to wonder where

their next paycheck was coming from. However, the situation was different

in the northern Netherlands. After the split between the northern and southern

Netherlands, all the traditional sources of artistic patronage disappeared in

the north, in what is today called Holland. Holland was a republic; therefore,

there was little aristocratic patronage beyond the House of Orange, of which

William the Silent was a member. Holland was predominantly Protestant, and

artists received no patronage from Calvinist churches, only limited private

patronage in Protestant strongholds, and some church commissions from

Catholic centers, such as Utrecht. There were also some larger commissions

for city halls.

Wealthy private patrons, others of limited means, and civic groups created

a demand for portraiture. People bought other paintings on the open market

for their homes, such as landscapes, still lifes, and genre subjects. Despite

the altered market—or perhaps because of it—there was a great demand

for paintings. This demand was met by an outpouring of artists. There were

literally thousands of painters—at mid-century, the Amsterdam census