Dutch Masters: The Age of Rembrandt

Holland in the 17th century was home to the most remarkable concentration of artistic talent and accomplishment in modern history. From this tiny land came the great masters Vermeer, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Pieter de Hooch, and Rembrandt, as well as an abundant assembly of memorable artists.
To this day, these compelling pictures take our breath away—an unrivalled heritage of portraits, still lifes, landscapes, marine paintings, and profoundly observant images of everyday Dutch life that continue to grace museums throughout Europe and America.
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Why are our eyes mesmerized by the glistening stream issuing from the pitcher in Vermeer's The Milkmaid? How does our understanding deepen with each moment we spend taking in the revealing details of his Woman Holding a Balance? What are the means that create the self-contained intimacy that glows from de Hooch's A Mother's Duty, or from his Interior with Women Beside a Linen Chest?

We are forever astonished by the inclusive sweep of Rembrandt's art, which encompasses the brooding power of The Mill and the moving immediacy of The Jewish Bride. That unsurpassed image of human devotion was painted with such astonishing bravura that Vincent Van Gogh, sitting spellbound before the painting in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseumtwo centuries later, was impelled to say: "One must have died several times to paint like that."

Learn What Made the Art of Holland so Special
What was it that made Holland so special, that nourished great masters and produced artists like Jan van de Cappelle, Meindert Hobbema, Jacob van Ruisdael, Pieter Saenredam, Gerard ter Borch, Hendrick Terbrugghen, and so many others?

And what of the extraordinary technical ability of Holland's artists? They commanded a realistic technique so descriptive and alive that their work seemed like a transcription of life itself. Many people today think of the Dutch artists as "realists." But is this really true? Were they, instead, the creators of a parallel reality—often preoccupied with concerns of faith and morality, and expressing deeper truths through the familiar realities they were painting?

Dutch Masters: The Age of Rembrandt will introduce you to the art of 17th-century Holland. It traces the development of this renowned, independent school of painting, and the great seafaring nation that produced the new society that would be reflected in that new art. The course concludes with the achievements of Holland's greatest and most versatile genius, Rembrandt, whose range of work—including his remarkable etchings—claims the final seven lectures.

Your introduction to this marvelous world is a visually sumptuous one, as Professor William Kloss—well known to Teaching Company customers from his A History of European Art and Great Artists of the Italian Renaissance—shows you the work of more than 100 artists and guides you through more than 450 masterful paintings.

How Deep Meaning Can Hide in the Tiniest Detail
Painting by painting, you'll see how each artist's technical choices—about composition, lighting, color, or brushstrokes, to name a few—contribute to a work's overall impact and statement. And you'll see how even the smallest detail of content can speak volumes. For instance, the artist may depict a room and include a painting hanging on a wall within that room, and that painting within the painting may have significant meaning. The same may be true of an artist's choice of background props or secondary figures in the painting.

In Adriaen van Ostade's stunning ink-and-watercolor Peasants Playing Gallet Outside an Inn, for example, the Haarlem artist's beautifully wrought images of rural peasant camaraderie, though presented with no small amount of affection, may also contain moral comments about the idleness many Dutch people would have seen in such activity. The man smoking a pipe in the foreground was an accepted symbol of laziness, and a scythe—an instrument of the harvest—remains pointedly unused, hanging from a post above the smoker's head.

Throughout the lectures, Professor Kloss shows how such details serve to open windows into the many aspects of Dutch society that gave its artists inspiration and themes, and that create the context for the course.

Dutch artists created paintings that offered insights into history and commerce. They also created great religious works that not only interpret biblical narratives but also address the spiritual conflicts of the period. Holland had a Jewish émigré community, small but vibrant, and the Dutch saw in Jewish history a parallel to their recent struggles; thus there existed a degree of tolerance perhaps unique in all of Europe. Finally, Dutch artists also placed on canvas every facet of daily domestic and social life in "genre" paintings, one of the most characteristic categories of Dutch art.

Whether you're new to art or an experienced museumgoer, Dutch Masters: The Age of Rembrandt is a delight, filled with insights into the explosive inventiveness of Dutch art as it interpreted and reinvented the reality of Holland—the most dynamic nation in 17th-century Europe.


1. Art and Society in 16th-Century Netherlands
2. The Years of Crisis in the Netherlands
3. Art in Haarlem and Utrecht, c. 1530–1625
4. Facing the Truth—Candid Portraits
5. Dutch Portraits, c. 1635–75
6. Frans Hals—The Early Years
7. Frans Hals—Civic Group Portraits
8. Frans Hals—Later Portraits
9. Town and City
10. Daily Life in the Town
11. Daily Life in the Home
12. Music and the Studio
13. Jan Steen—Order and Disorder in Dutch Life
14. Pieter de Hooch and Quietude
15. Art in Delft
16. Johannes Vermeer, c. 1655–60
17. Johannes Vermeer, c. 1660–65
18. Johannes Vermeer, c. 1665–70
19. Still-Life Painting, c. 1620–54
20. Still-Life Painting, c. 1652–82
21. Landscape Painting—The Early Decades
22. Landscapes of Jan van Goyen and Rembrandt
23. Foreign Landscapes
24. Landscape Painting in the 1640s and 1650s
25. Jacob van Ruisdael
26. Dutch Landscape Painting until 1689
27. Marine Painting
28. The Moral of the Story—History Painting
29. The Decoration of the Amsterdam Town Hall
30. Rembrandt to 1630
31. Rembrandt in Amsterdam, 1631–34
32. Rembrandt and the Baroque Style
33. Rembrandt's Personal Baroque Style
34. Rembrandt's Etchings
35. Rembrandt in the 1650s
36. Rembrandt's Last Years

professor: William Kloss
country: usa


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