Dutch Style of Painting in the 17th Century - Assignment Example

Dutch Style of Painting in the 17th Century The seventeenth-century Dutch art represented a unique form of visual expression in Netherlands with most of them expressing the lifestyle of the middle-class urban elites. It is possible to recognize Dutch paintings because of the unmistakable signs such as its small format, concentration, and powerful and sober color. Dutch artists have been famous since the 17th century because of their illusionistic skills and their ability to capture some myriad textures of familiar environments. Book page 2 paragraph 1 Paraphrase The artists divided the pictures such that they had two or more spaces especially for the interior pictures. Scenes of people performing their daily activities were common with some artists concerned with the interior of urban houses. Some of the scenes resembled the domestic appearances of their buyers with excellent pictures. The seventeenth-century painters followed a systematic method with the workload divided into various phases to enable working on one phase at a time (Hollander 2). The painters gave a lot of attention to perspective underused varying paint consistencies due to the scarcity of different colors. Summary After the 1640s, many of the houses’ interiors contained scenes of daily life activities with some pictures and maps along the doorways. One of the paintings by Hedrick Sorgh in Rotterdam had a figure of a mother who devoted her time for her children (Hollander 2). In some scenes such as the courtship, paintings consisted of men and women drinking or playing music. Other paintings were biblical and mythological scenes on walls addressing various issues and narrating stories (Hollander 2). Dutch paintings can say a lot just in a small setting through the conceptualization of the images. The texts and pictures were a form of entertainment and vehicles for persuasion and challenge in the 17th century. The secondary pictures in Dutch paintings were for commentaries and pictorial and not verbal representing the painters’ thoughts. The paintings provided the aspect of rhetoric and a chance to consider many sides of the issues both simple and complex. The splitting of images into several parts is a fundamental feature of the Western image making as it occurs in the medieval pictorial systems. The separation of the pictures provided a wider theme for the picture or narrative. Copied paragraph In March 2015, Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century earned the prestigious George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award from the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) for excellence in art publishing. “The selection of Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century acknowledges a transformational achievement in art historical publishing,” said Carole Ann Fabian, ARLIS/NA President and Director of the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, in presenting the award. In it are outstanding examples of the portraits, genre scenes, landscapes, marine paintings, still lifes, and biblical and mythological scenes that have made this school of painting one of the most beloved and admired in the history of European art. Paraphrase Dutch paintings have won a number of prestigious awards such as the Dutch paintings of the George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award for their high-quality art of publishing. Their famous artistic skills in the 17th Century denoted a very rich past full of beautiful paintings, of portraits, genre scenes, marine paintings, and still-lives, which are a representation of their culture and traditions (Nga.gov n.p). Summary A visual art was an important and extraordinary phenomenon in the Dutch paintings in the early 17th century, which won a number of awards. The Dutch people took their achievement with a lot of pride especially matters concerning the art of painting. They created different portraits, genre scenes, still life pictures, landscape, and biblical scenes. The scenes were quite admirable and lovable by many in the European art history. Most of the paintings were hung in houses and the abundance of money due to the rise in capitalism in Netherlands led to more paintings for sale. Since most of the Dutch inhabitants had surplus resources they decided to furnish their houses with pictures from paintings (Nga.gov n.p). There was a great demand for the paintings, which were sold at low prices for the decoration of houses. The seventeenth Century Dutch art was recognized as an urban form of visual expression in Netherlands and the surrounding cities where there were many artists. Copied Paragraph Reformers tried to establish the dominance of word over image in devotional practices, arguing that the word reveals, whereas the image conceals and coerces. Roman Catholics, on the other hand, defended the superiority of devotional imagery with the argument that the visual arts stimulate the imaginative and commemorative power of the human mind in ways texts cannot. These tensions over the issue eventually materialized as a historical phenomenon around 1566 in the iconoclastic breaking of images almost everywhere in Europe Paraphrase Some of the Dutch painters integrated religious images with secular ones from the modern life and used the traditional formula to depict the real life (Stronks 220). The mainstream Baroque art consisting of architecture, painting, and sculpture related closely to the Roman Catholic counter-reformists efforts to reestablish the church influence in Europe. The Protestantism awakening led to the funding of the work of arts by the Catholic Church. Painters specialized in various categories of paintings such as biblical themes, mythological, landscape, political, and marine themes to do their paintings. Summary Some reformers condemned the art of painting and termed it as immoral and unreligious, but the lovers of paintings continued with their artistic skills. The artists later came up with the new form of paintings of their self-portraits, which were highly valued in the art market. The paintings were in different categories such as histories concerning bible stories, mythology, landscapes, and allegories (Stronks 220). The other categories of paintings were marine paintings, still-lifes, genre paintings, and portraits. The wealthy people and the most popular bought paintings of histories and allegories. The next popular painting was that of landscape followed by the portraits, still life, and finally Genre. Conclusion Dutch paintings were highly valued and fetched high prices in the market in the 17th Century. Many paintings could be traced in homes belonging to the wealthy individuals as most of them were for the decoration of the houses. The artistic skills were transmitted from the masters to their young sons and daughters aspiring to be artists through many years of apprenticeship. It is possible to recognize Dutch work of art because of the unmistakable signs such as its small format, concentration, powerful, and the sober color. The artists of the 17th century used divided spaces for the organization of the paintings to denote both social and domestic life. Works Cited Hollander, M. An Entrance for the Eyes: Space and Meaning in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. (2002). Univ of California Press. Nga.gov,. Dutch Paintings Of The Seventeenth Century. N.p., 2015. Web. 17 June 2015. http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/research/online-editions/17th-century-dutch-paintings.html Stronks, Els. Literature And The Shaping Of Religious Identities: The Case Of The Protestant Religious Emblem In The Dutch Republic*. History of Religions 49.3 (2010): 219-253.Print. Read More