Dutch Realist School of Genre Painting 4 266 Раздел в процессе наполнения и корректировки

Dutch Realist School of Genre PaintingAt Utrecht, Haarlem, Leiden, Amsterdam, Delft, Dordrecht. MAIN A-Z INDEX – A-Z of PAINTING

ContentsOrigins and History • New Type of Art For New Patron • Development of Dutch Realist Art • Schools of Dutch Realism • Utrecht • Haarlem • Leiden • Delft • List of Dutch Realist Painters

Origins and History of Dutch Realism The extraordinary flourishing of 17th century Dutch painting occurred as a result of several factors. To begin with, there was the 1520 schism in the Church between Catholic Rome and the Protestant religious movement of Northern Europe. This led to the emergence of a new style of Protestant Reformation art – known as " Dutch Realism " – and an abrupt decline in ecclesiastical patronage of large scale religious painting in Protestant countries like Holland.

The Roman Catholic authorities responded with their Baroque Counter Reformation, designed to restore primacy to monumental religious art (and in the process to regain their lost prestige), but political events were in the saddle. The Catholic Spanish Empire began to lose its grip in the Netherlands, whose determination for independence was buttressed by growing trade and prosperity.

The Lacemaker (1669-70) Louvre, Paris. By Jan Vermeer.

WORLD’S TOP GENRE WORKSFor the greatest examples ofgenre-painting, see:Best Genre Painters.

TYPES OF ARTSFor an explanation of the differentcategories of fine, decorative andapplied arts, see: TYPES OF ART.

New Type of Art For New Type of Bourgeois Patron The upshot, in Holland at any rate, was a new group of customers for a new type of art. The customers were the newly emerging members of the Dutch Protestant middle classes – property owners, factory owners, merchants, master craftsmen and other respectable burghers of affluent cities like Amsterdam, Leiden, Haarlem and Delft.

What they wanted (and got) was small-scale portable artwork of an overtly secular and bourgeois nature which reflected their growing status and reputation.

This included portrait art – featuring both individuals and groups – along with genre-painting, (everyday scenes) still life painting and landscapes depicting their country houses and livestock.

God-fearing they may have been, but if they were paying, they wanted their money’s worth. This demand for a new type of easel-art was more than satisfied by painters well used to the painterly tradition of Jan Van Eyck, with its emphasis on high lustre oil painting, precise naturalism and painstaking draughtsmanship.

All this gathered pace from the beginning of the 17th century onwards, in the guise of a new style of art we now know as Dutch Realism, although the style actually flourished for only a few decades between roughly 1648, when Holland became an independent Republic, and 1672 which saw the French invasion of the country and the ensuing collapse of the Dutch economy.

Even so, through the work of artists like Rembrandt and Jan Vermeer , the movement still managed to produce some of the most unforgettable images in the history of art.

The New Patron For Dutch Realist Painters Who exactly was this new Dutch art patron? Typically, he was a city dweller and a man of affairs. Military service and the complications of growing overseas commerce had sharpened his wits and given him a rare self confidence. He was a patriot but not interested in anything that did not minister to his dignity and comfort. Above all, he was justly proud of his house and home. He displays a curious blend of thrift and lavishness. No costume is too smart or costly for his body, no food or wine too dear for his stomach. He is socially minded and an inveterate joiner of trade and merchant guilds, chambers of rhetoric and charities. He marries prudently and takes a keen pride in the neatness with which his city house is kept. To decorate it he is ready to lavish money on ceramics and pictures, as well the finest cloth for his wife and children. Such a man asks of the painter just one service; portraiture of himself and in a broad sense of his belongings and family. This means first: he wants to be painted himself in all his manly bravery; he is also willing to pay for his portrait in the groups and corporations to which he belongs. Next he wants his women to be portrayed and also his children. He likes the tranquility of his home and welcomes pictures of the rooms in which his women occupy themselves. He cares a great deal for his city and his street and will pay for good painting on these themes. He loves feasting and merriment and will commission portrayals of his own family celebrating by themselves or with friends at an appropriate tavern. He is proud of his kitchen and tableware and so is an excellent client for the still-life painter. In landscape, his taste is limited. He prefers to see pictures of his own country house with or without his cattle. In addition he enjoys studies of the quiet or angry sea and of the fates of boats and ships.