Golden Age of Dutch Painting: 1600-1650
Tuesdays, 25 September – 4 December 2018
Seminar Room 5, Learning Centre, Level 3
10.30-13.00
Course Director: Clare Ford-Wille
The first half of the 17th century was a rich and varied period in the newly independent Dutch provinces. Protestantism resulted in the whitewashing of former Catholic churches and the elimination of religious imagery, promoting an exciting development of new subject matter.
The Dutch Caravaggisti painters, Honthorst, ter Brugghen and Baburen brought new ideas back from Rome, while Frans Hals and Rembrandt pushed portraiture to new heights of characterisation and emotional intensity. Group portraiture becomes an important and vital contribution of both painters, as well as their contemporaries. Landscape painting, which had emerged in the South Netherlands during the 16th century as a subject in its own right, becomes even more important to Dutch painters, such as Esaias van der Velde and Jan van Goyen, who introduced a quintessentially Dutch landscape in their exploration of atmosphere and skies. Marine painting plays a new and important role, promoted by Dutch reliance upon the water in the canals and rivers of their land, as well as their extensive voyages for trade and exploration.
Still life and subjects from everyday life develop in fascinating and varied ways and can contain intriguing double meanings through the use of emblems and symbols, in a range of artists’ work, as in the flower paintings of Ambrosius Bosschaert or the powerful tonal breakfast table compositions of Clara Peeters. The genre paintings of Dirk Hals, Judith Leyster or Jan Steen range over a wide variety of everyday life subject matter from merry company scenes, doctors’ visits, music lessons or inn scenes.
Course Overview
Week 1: 25 September
10.30 Introduction to the background of history, politics and economics of early 17th century Dutch Painting
12.00 Dutch Painting around 1600
Week 2: 2 October
10.30 The Emergence of Dutch Mannerism and The Work of Utrecht and Haarlem Painters c.1600
12.00 The Dutch Caravaggisti in Rome and Utrecht
Week 3: 9 October
10.30 Innovations in Portraiture in the 17th Century Dutch Republic: Frans Hals
12.00 The Group Portrait from Hals to Rembrandt
Week 4: 16 October
10.30 Rembrandt as a History Painter to 1650
12.00 Symbolism and Emblems in Dutch Art
Half Term: 23 October
Week 5: 30 October
10.30 The Emergence of Genre as a Subject in the Netherlands 1550- 1620
12.00 Dutch Genre Painting from 1620-1650
Week 6: 6 November
10.30 Dutch Drawings and Prints 1600-1650 Part I Guest Speaker: Louise Cooling
12.00 Dutch Drawings and Prints 1600-1650 Part II Guest Speaker: Louise Cooling
Week 7: 13 November
10.30 The Emergence of Landscape as a Subject in the Netherlands 1550-1620
12.00 Dutch Landscape Painting 1620-1650
Week 8: 20 November
10.30 The Origins of Dutch Still Life circa 1600
12.00 Dutch Still Life in the 17th Century 1620-1650
Week 9: 27 November
10.30 The Rembrandt Research Project
12.00 The Important of the Print in the Dutch Golden Age
Week 10: 4 December
10.30 Rembrandt’s Etchings up to 1650
12.00 Future Directions
***All lectures given by Clare Ford-Wille unless otherwise stated. This programme is subject to change.