2 The work of Goya
Goya developed from a decorator of churches to a court artist, accomplished portraitist, satirical graphic artist and a painter of dark, nightmare visions. His work at court, for Carlos III and Carlos IV, involved both decorative work and a series of portraits of key figures who moved in court circles. As his official, public work […]
1 Background information
Learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:
Introduction
What influenced Goya? Did Napoleon’s invasion of Spain alter the course of Goya’s career? This course will guide you through the works of Goya and the influences of the times in which he lived. Anyone with a desire to look for the influences behind the work of art will benefit from studying this course. This […]
Acknowledgements
This free course was written by Jason Gaiger. Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence . The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for […]
References
Alpers, S. (1983) The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. Alpers, S. (1997) ‘Picturing Dutch culture’ in Franits, W. (ed.) Looking at Dutch Seventeenth-Century Art: Realism Reconsidered, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 57–67. Angels, P. (1996) Praise of Painting (trans. M. Hoyle), Simiolus, vol. 24, no. 2/3, pp. 227–58. Białostocki, J. […]
Conclusion
In this free course, Dutch painting of the Golden Age, you have examined a range of different strategies for interpreting Dutch seventeenth-century painting: the ‘direct realist’ interpretation, defended by Hegel and Fromentin, which treats Dutch painting of this period as a documentary portrait of a people, its landscape and its customs; the ‘disguised symbolism’ interpretation, defended […]
8 Realism reconsidered
This course has argued that recent work on Dutch landscape painting reveals some of the limits of the icononological approach and that it redirects our attention once again to those aspects of Dutch art that so intrigued Hegel and Fromentin. An important difference is that scholars now place greater emphasis on the selective and constructed […]
7 The role of conventions
Schama’s approach represents a partial return to the position adopted by earlier writers such as Hegel and Fromentin, who drew a close connection between the emergence of the Dutch nation state and characteristic features of Dutch seventeenth-century painting. However, Schama’s recognition that the paintings he discusses are ‘highly selective and value-laden’ also accords with more […]
6 Landscape painting and the limitations of the iconological approach
When de Jongh first drew the distinction between ‘realism’ and ‘seeming realism’ in his landmark essay of 1971, he was careful to point out that while he had found evidence of disguised symbolism in all the main types of Dutch seventeenth-century painting, including interior scenes, still life, portraiture and landscape, it would be wrong to […]
5 ‘To instruct and delight’
The iconographic method rapidly established itself as the dominant approach to seventeenth-century Dutch painting and was taken up by a large number of art historians, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere. In 1976, exactly one hundred years after the publication of Fromentin’s book, de Jongh and his colleagues curated a major exhibition at the Rijksmuseum […]
4 Disguised symbolism and ‘seeming realism’
Doubts about the validity of the realist interpretation had already been expressed in scattered form by a number of writers, but it was not until the completion of the so-called ‘iconological turn’ in Dutch art history in the second half of the twentieth century that a viable alternative was established. Iconologists are primarily concerned with […]
3 Dutch history painting
Nineteenth-century Dutch nationalism helped to shape a canon based on the idea that authentically Dutch art is realist, allowing artists such as Johannes Vermeer (1632–75) (Figures 1, 29 and 30) and Pieter de Hooch (1629–84) (Figure 2) to be admired precisely on account of what is seen as their typically Dutch realism. Until comparatively recently […]
2 Realism and art-for-art’s sake
From the late nineteenth century through to the mid twentieth century, it was widely accepted among art historians that Dutch painting of the golden age was distinguished from other national traditions by its realism. Thus, for example, the German art historian Wilhelm Bode, in his 1883 Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei (Studies in the History of […]
1 ‘A new state, a new art’
The political and geographical entity that has come to be known as the Netherlands – and more popularly, although incorrectly, as Holland – emerged through a protracted struggle to gain independence from Spain. A confederation of Northern Provinces came together in 1579 in order to resist Habsburg rule, but it was not until the signing […]
Learning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to: explore recent debates around the interpretation of seventeenth-century Dutch painting consider the strengths and limitations of iconology as an art-historical approach examine the notion of ‘realism’ as applied to works of art address the relevance of social and cultural context for interpreting works of art analyse […]
Introduction Dutch Painting from the Golden Age
In this free course, Dutch painting of the Golden Age, you shall be exploring issues of meaning and interpretation with specific reference to Dutch seventeenth-century painting. Works by artists such as Johannes Vermeer (Figure 1), Pieter de Hooch (Figure 2), Gabriel Metsu (Figure 3), Jacob van Ruisdael (Figure 4) and Jan Steen (Figure 5) are now […]
Acknowledgements
This course was written by Dr Emma Barker. This free course is an adapted extract from the course A207 From Enlightenment to Romanticism, which is currently out of presentation Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made […]
References
Boime, A. (1990) Art in an Age of Bonapartism, Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Brookner, A. (1980) Jacques-Louis David, London, Chatto and Windus. Delacroix, E. (1938) The Journal of Eugene Delacroix, trans. Walter Pach, London, Jonathan Cape. Delécluze, É.-J. (1983) Louis David: Son ecole et son temps, ed. J.-P. Mouilleseaux, Paris, Macola (first published 1855). Grigsby, D.G. (1995) ‘Rumor, […]