Close Encounters of the Museum Kind

The Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century was a male-dominated society and women were discriminated against in almost every aspect of life. Nevertheless, it is also the case that women had greater rights than in most other countries. For example, women had certain rights to inherit and bequeath property, and they could act as governesses of charitable institutions. Women could work as midwives, market traders and school teachers. Anna Maria van Schurman was an important writer, author of philosophy books and a work on women’s education called The Learned Maid (Schama 404-412). There are also examples of women working as independent artists, including Judith Leyster, Rachel Ruysch and Maria van Oosterwyck. Women tended to control domestic life and must often have chosen the furnishings of the home, including the paintings (Honig 194). Maria de Knuijt, wife of Vermeer’s patron Pieter van Ruijven, left the artist 500 florins in her will, and it is likely that her tastes influenced V...

T he group portrait was a distinctive feature of Dutch culture in the seventeenth century. Other European countries were dominated by monarchies and aristocracies, but the Netherlands was a republic. The group portrait also expressed a typically Dutch fondness for clubs and societies. Even today, many Dutch people belong to their local choir or sports club. The group portraits depict the officers of local militia companies, the regents of charitable organisations, and the boards of guilds. The paintings were usually intended to hang in particular locations and depicted named individuals, who had paid to be included.  Frans Hals painted a total of nine group portraits: the three paintings of the St. George Militia Company of Haarlem; the two paintings of the St. Hadrian Militia Company, also at Haarlem; the Militia Company of Captain Reael of Amsterdam (completed by another artist, Pieter Codde); the painting of the regents of St. Elizabeth's Hospital at Haarlem; and the companion ...

“With such eyes did Michelangelo, Raphael and Poussin see the works of the ancients. They partook of good taste at its source” ( Art in Theory 451). These words of Johann Winckelmann (1717-68), art historian and promoter of Neoclassicism, show how highly the works of Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) were regarded in art academies. Winckelmann makes the assumption that “classic” art - the art of Greece and Rome, the High Renaissance and Poussin - is aesthetically superior and a standard of beauty for all time. We must consider the reasons why Poussin achieved such high status. Winckelmann disliked Baroque art, which he thought decadent and vulgar. And Poussin, although working in the Baroque period, is not a typically Baroque artist, since in most (but not all) of his works he adopts a more restrained and classical style. Poussin said of himself that “my nature compels me to seek and love things that are well-ordered, fleeing confusion” (Blunt   Poussin 175). Thus Poussin tends to esch...

Johannes Vermeer was untypical in that he did not specialise in one type of painting. He began his career as a history painter, and then moved on to genre scenes, but also painted two outdoor scenes - The Little Street and View of Delft - some portraits (or are they "tronies"?), and pictures of characters: The Astronomer and The Geographer . This was quite a varied output, although it must be remembered that genre painters often painted other types of picture as well. Gerard ter Borch and Nicolaes Maes, for example, also painted portraits, and Jan Steen also painted some religious paintings. Vermeer's varied output would seem to indicate ambition and yet, perhaps surprisingly, he was content to remain in Delft, and did not seek to improve his fortunes by moving to Amsterdam - unlike Pieter de Hooch. This may be because Vermeer had some other sources of income from his business as a picture dealer and from his mother-in-law, Maria Thins, with whom Vermeer and his wife ...