Monuments are surprisingly shaky. Usually built to last and designed to convey an unambiguous message, the monument’s capacity to provoke responses that range from boredom to hatred creates the [...] Read More
17th-Century Dutch Republic
Turning Heads (Krasse Koppen): Rubens, Rembrandt and (en) Vermeer
As psychologists have long known, there is no visual experience more powerful than coming face-to-face with another human being. It is not surprising, then, that human physiognomy has occupied artists [...] Read More
Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art
Every historian of Dutch art knows of Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) but few know much about her. Flower painter, daughter of the famed anatomist Frederik Ruysch… and there it usually stops. There has not [...] Read More
Rembrandt-Hoogstraten: Colour and Illusion; Samuel van Hoogstraten: The Illusionist; The Life and Work of the Painter: Dirck van Hoogstraten (1596-1640).
These three publications, one monograph and two exhibition catalogues, complement one another, celebrating three artists of very distinct characters, abilities, ambitions and generations: Dirck van [...] Read More
Careers by Design: Hendrick Goltzius & Peter Paul Rubens
The life and career of Peter Paul Rubens were defined by his foreign travels, both artistic and diplomatic. In a near-constant to and fro across Europe, two seemingly essential journeys and exchanges [...] Read More
Trade, Globalization, and Dutch Art and Architecture: Interrogating Dutchness and the Golden Age.
Marsely Kehoe begins her recent monograph, Trade, Globalization, and Dutch Art and Architecture, with two big claims: that the Dutch Republic’s global reach was key to the cultural as well as the [...] Read More