17th Century Dutch And Flemish Painters

A catalogue of 128 paintings produced during this period in which the art of portraiture was transformed, religious imagery dynamized, and new genres such as flower painting were established. The art of Holland's Golden Age is perennially popular with collectors and gallery visitors alike and this book provides a new insight into this unique private collection. In his introduction Ivan Gaskill considers the extremely varied character of Dutch and Flemsih seventeenth century art. It ranges from minutely observed scens of everyday life to portraits, religious works and intimate still-life compositions. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection is especially rich in landscapes, a subject which had emerged as a seperate genre in the Netherlands in the previous century. The author outlines the development of painting on both sides of the border, placing it in its social and historical context, and goes on to discuss the taste for Dutch and Flemish art from the seventeenth century to the present day and spotlights some of the earlier collectors. This detailed catalogue of 128 paintings is the result of meticulous researchin British, Dutch and American libraries and archives. The entries are arranged in ten groups by subject so that thematic similarities can be conveniently examined. Amongst the most celebrated works is Frans Hal's monumental "Family Portrait" - once the most expensive painting in the world. All the paintings are illustrated in colour and are accompanied by comparative illustrations and technical photographs.

This beautifully illustrated, expansive overview of Dutch and Flemish art during the 17th century illuminates the creative achievements of one of the most important eras in western art. The Golden Age in Holland and Flanders roughly spanned the 17th century and was a period of enormous advances in the fields of commerce, science--and art. Still lifes, landscape paintings, and romantic depictions of everyday life became valued by the increasingly wealthy merchant classes in the Dutch provinces, while religious and historic paintings as well as portraits continued to appeal to the Flemish patronage. The Golden Age brought us Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, and Van Dyck, but it was also the period of Frans Hals' revolutionary portraiture, Adriaen Brouwer's depictions of the working class at play, Jan Brueghel's velvety miniatures, and Hendrick Avercamp's lively winter landscapes. Norbert Wolf applies his vast understanding of the interplay between history, culture, and art to explore the forces that led to the Golden Age in Holland and Flanders and how this period influenced later generations of artists. Accompanied by luminous color illustrations, Wolf's accessible text considers the complex political, religious, social, and economic situation that led to newfound prosperity and, thus, to an enormous artistic output that we continue to marvel at and enjoy today.

Heda's Banquet Piece, Frans Hals' Willem Coymans, and Rembrandt's Lucretia. Paintings by these and other masters attracted the American collectors P. A. B. Widener, his son Joseph, and Andrew W. Mellon, whose bequests form the heart of the National Gallery's distinguished and remarkably cohesive collection of ninety-one Dutch paintings.

This book presents the first systematic analysis of artistic techniques and terminology related to the rendering of light and shade in Dutch and Flemish art from the early-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century. It traces a shift in aesthetic perception, which is visible in the handling of chiaroscuro in Dutch and Flemish art in the course of 150 years, and challenges the view, widespread since Julius von Schlosser's influential survey of European art and literarure, that Netherlandish art was mainly uninventive. In their discussions Netherlandish writers of art theory drew on a) earlier and foreign art literature, b) their insights, mainly as painters, into workshop practice, c) observation of nature (including natural sciences) and d) aesthetic judgement. This volume investigates the different extents to which Netherlandisch writers on art depended on these four aspects as they devised their concepts of chiaroscuro and how this relates to contemporary pictorial practice. Statements on chiaroscuro in the writings of Karel van Mander, Philips Angel, Willem Goeree, Samuel van Hoogstraten, Gerard de Lairesse, Arnold Houbraken and Jacob Campo Weyerman have been compared with paintings of the period to test the writers' statements against the artists'methods. The comparison shows that writers of art theory described partly the same or similar methods to achieve effects of chiaroscuro that artists used in their works, which is understandable, given that most of them were active as artists themselves. Yet there are also divergences, especially when it comes to the question whether artists should value rendering natural effects over pictorial coherence. Dutch writers of art regarded natural impression as a crucial aim of art, but they often struggled with reconciling nature and aesthetic requirements in their arguments. In the art of the Netherlands, however, we can observe frequently that aesthetic and pictorial composition came before nature.

"The National Gallery of Art's collection of seventeenth-century Flemish paintings is relatively small, numbering less than sixty, but exceptional in quality. At the core of the collection are twelve paintings by Sir Peter Paul Rubens and his school and seventeen paintings by Sir Anthony van Dyck, including some of their finest masterpieces. Also represented are excellent works by other important Flemish masters, among them Osias Beert the Elder, Adriaen Brouwer, Jan Brueghel the Elder, and David Teniers the Younger." "This catalogue of the Gallery's remarkable collection of Flemish paintings offers new information about each of the individual works. Stylistic characteristics of the paintings have been analyzed; historical circumstances related to their creation have been assessed; and their provenances have been reexamined. A number of the paintings have undergone conservation treatment, while the technical characteristics of other works have been thoroughly studied. This exhaustive research has indicated that the titles, dates, and even attributions of a number of works needed to be changed, and the catalogue includes a concordance of these revisions."--BOOK JACKET.

This beautifully illustrated, expansive overview of Dutch and Flemish art during the 17th century illuminates the creative achievements of one of the most important eras in western art. The Golden Age in Holland and Flanders roughly spanned the 17th century and was a period of enormous advances in the fields of commerce, science--and art. Still lifes, landscape paintings, and romantic depictions of everyday life became valued by the increasingly wealthy merchant classes in the Dutch provinces, while religious and historic paintings as well as portraits continued to appeal to the Flemish patronage. The Golden Age brought us Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, and Van Dyck, but it was also the period of Frans Hals' revolutionary portraiture, Adriaen Brouwer's depictions of the working class at play, Jan Brueghel's velvety miniatures, and Hendrick Avercamp's lively winter landscapes. Norbert Wolf applies his vast understanding of the interplay between history, culture, and art to explore the forces that led to the Golden Age in Holland and Flanders and how this period influenced later generations of artists. Accompanied by luminous color illustrations, Wolf's accessible text considers the complex political, religious, social, and economic situation that led to newfound prosperity and, thus, to an enormous artistic output that we continue to marvel at and enjoy today.