Dutch Art/Age of Rembrandt

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

You have most likely heard of Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt van Rijn whose paintings have been the focus of countless exhibitions, films, and novels. While we will study their careers and remarkable artworks in-depth, their paintings comprise only a tiny fraction of an estimated 5-10 million works of art produced in the 17th-century Dutch Republic (now the Netherlands) for a population of about the same as Philadelphia today. One scholar estimates that, at times, artists made up 5% of the male labor force in dutch towns. Our class will explore this explosion of art. In addition to surveying other artists and their paintings and prints, we will consider the broader context of the profusion of art: political independence, trade, and exploration, a unique art market, a wide range of buyers, and new methods of production. The seventeenth-century in The Dutch Republic was known for great prosperity, but also for an astonishing artistic explosion. Over the course of this semester, we will become familiar with the art, the artists, and the art market of the extraordinary century.