The Golden Age: Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century

The Golden Age by Bob Haak remains the seminal book on the subject of Dutch painting in the seventeenth century. Justifiably known as the Golden Age, this was one of the most intensely creative periods of artistic activity the world has ever known. Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Ruisdael, and Jan Steen are a few of the more famous great Dutch painters of this era. Yet also painting in Holland at that time were hundreds of artists of merit who specialized in both traditional subjects and those invented to satisfy the demand of the newly liberated Dutch Republic.
This book includes more than 400 Dutch artists, some with one representative work, some with many. Through these extraordinary works, the rich fabric of seventeenth-century Dutch society comes alive: scenes and portraits of men and women in public office; paired husband-and-wife portraits; domestic scenes; outdoor life on Holland's canals, boating in summer and skating in winter; scenes of grand new buildings and of old churches newly whitewashed inside; the look of the land and the seacoast in all weathers. And in sharper focus are the marvelous still-life paintings, from tiny works showing a bit of bread and an oyster to rich displays of game, fruits, and wine; still lifes of fish and of insects; grand arrangements of flowers, often featuring priceless tulips - all of these imbued with the sense of the passing of time, of fading or evanescent beauty. Dutch painting, so full of life and vitality, has haunting overtones of moral and psychological subtlety which readily finds echoes in our own world.
Bob Haak's text is a guide through all the Dutch cities and towns where painters were at work. His familiarity with the historical circumstances of their art is remarkably complete, and he understands how Dutch art forged its own pictorial style as the nation forged its independence; how, in their freedom from the patronage of the Catholic Church, Dutch patrons and artists found a new wealth of subjects to enjoy and explore, subjects close to their life yet enriched by their sense of life's pleasures and obligations. And how they invented a painting style to express this, using light, color, and movement with greater freedom than had ever been done before.