Seventeenth century Dutch art: brief guide to the Mauritshuis, the Hague, and to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

摘要

The Netherlands gained its independence from Spain in 1648 at the conclusion of the Eighty Years War, after a number of bloody battles. This led to the formation of the confederation of the Dutch provinces with a Protestant leadership, under the house of Orange. Both the years that preceded and those that followed the Peace of Munster saw the growth of a large and well-to-do middle class, with considerable business interests in the newly colonized regions of the Americas and East Indies. Along with the growth of the middle class and the decline of the power of the Catholic Church, this period was also characterized by a strong interest in developing a national identity, and by a strong intellectual life. There was a natural identification of the Dutch national history with that of the Jews of the Old Testament, with Spain taking the role of Egypt as the oppressor. Further, an interest in the natural sciences developed, and the science of optics was pursued with spectacular achievements. The names of Huygens and van Leeuwenhoek are still familiar today, after more than three centuries. Fifty years before the establishment of the Protestant government in the Netherlands, and following the Sack of Antwerp, there was also a migration of Flemish Protestants northward to escape Spanish domination, and many of these immigrants brought with them a highly developed cultural and artistic education. Moreover, the Dutch proved to be reasonably tolerant for that time, for not only were Catholics able to continue their religious practices, at least in the privacy of their homes, a relatively large Jewish community lived in the Netherlands without serious persecution.