Art Appreciation: The Dutch Golden Age - Art History

This course visits the time when the Netherlands reigned supreme. Freed from the yoke of Spain they flourished as traders, explorers and artists. The major art figures of the time were Rubens, Vermeer and Rembrandt; very different artists, very different personalities. Rubens the courtier, diplomat, charmer, very uxorious and a sharp businessman, with a huge output from the Rubens “factory”. Rembrandt - hailed as a genius from an early age, very appreciative of the fairer sex, hard-working but brought down by being a terrible businessman. He changed the way portraiture was thought of and reached the heights of renown, with his masterpiece cherished as the symbol of the Netherlands. But he died in poverty and his last big commission spurned by the town council he had commissioned it. Last but very much not least, Vermeer, a converted Catholic in a Protestant city, living with his mother-in-law and eventually eleven children. He produced two paintings a year, working on his own and selling his tiny output locally. He died tragically young as a direct consequence of the Franco/Dutch war. Yet the exhibition this year at the Reijksmuseum was completely sold out just after it opened.