This is my new book. So exciting.
It’s by Dr Norbert Wolf. It’s about the Dutch Golden Age.
The enlightenment ideals of this period lead to such a wonderful variety of achievements - exploration and trade, economic prosperity, religious freedom and especially art. Also, a period of considerable warfare - the Eighty Years war, the Anglo-Dutch war, Dutch East India Company etc.
The artistic and cultural flourishing in this period is absolutely incredible. The groundbreaking depictions of everyday peasant life and the rustic charm of 17th-century Netherlands is always so meticulous and so very beautifully, such as Jan Steen.
In any gallery I visit, whether it is the flower stills of Dutch painters (e.g., Rachel Ruysch) or the serene and intimate domestic interiors of middle-class life (e.g. Pieter de Hooch) - they are truly phenomenal and show a highly-detailed artistic flourishing.
And of course, we have Vermeer, Rembrandt and Rubens.
So, I will be focusing my future posts on this period, as I go through the book.
:)