Rick Steves' Europe
Art Bites 179: Northern Baroque Painting: Hals, Steen, Vermeer
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Hals, Steen, Vermeer painted slices of regular life and group portraits of city bigwigs.
Baroque art in the Protestant North — without the patronage of popes and kings — reflected the practical values of the merchants who paid for it. Steen, Vermeer, and Hals painted slices of regular life and group portraits of city bigwigs.
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Rick Steves' Europe
Art Bites 179: Northern Baroque Painting: Hals, Steen, Vermeer
Clip | 4m 53sVideo has Closed Captions
Baroque art in the Protestant North — without the patronage of popes and kings — reflected the practical values of the merchants who paid for it. Steen, Vermeer, and Hals painted slices of regular life and group portraits of city bigwigs.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipWhile southern Europe favored traditional Catholic rule and the theatrical Baroque style, the Protestant countries of the North, while still a part of the Baroque age, were forging a different path.
Without the lavish patronage of popes and nobles, Protestant art was more secular█ reflecting the values of a new market: the no-nonsense merchants who paid for it.
Painters captured an industrious spirit.
Northern cities were bustling█ with hard-working craftsmen and businessmen, while sea traders headed off to distant lands.
And, along with seascapes, idyllic landscapes of fertile fields— often land reclaimed from the sea using ingenious windmills— celebrated Dutch industriousness.
And in the flat Netherlands, a landscape was also a dramatic skyscape.
The lively market town of Haarlem, near Amsterdam, looks much like it did when it was painted back in Holland█s 17th century Golden Age█ an age captured vividly on canvas.
Its most famous son, Frans Hals, made a nice living painting portraits of a new kind of customer█ merchants.
He produced ego-boosting portraits of city big shots█ the citizens who epitomized the independent and upwardly mobile Dutch of the time.
Like these businessmen— closing a deal— they worked hard and were proud of it.
In this woman█s portrait, her elegant dress and jewelry are painted with as much care as her face█ confidently affirming the materialistic values of the people who made the Golden Age golden.
Amsterdam— a city practically built on water— was one of the busiest seaports in the world.
Wealth poured in from overseas fueling a booming society█ and its art.
The Dutch enjoyed showing off the fruits of their labor in exquisitely detailed still lifes of good food.
No preachy church art or Greek myths here, but a canvas reminder that this household ate very well.
And this family boasted some fine pewter ware.
Paintings were intimate, with muted colors and less drama.
Virgin Marys and Apollos were out— cheese was in.
Perhaps for the first time, art catered to the tastes and budgets of middle-class people too.
Smaller canvases by no-name artists that a regular merchant could afford and hang in his living room.
Jan Steen offered a delightful slice of 17th-century Dutch life.
Entertaining█ sure█ but Steen loved to slip in a dose of folk morality.
Here, children teach a cat to dance— mischief on their delighted faces— but their father█s upset that they█re wasting time.
And these parents party while the kids copy their irresponsible behavior: The girls learn to drink and the little boy picks up smoking.
The note warns, “Parents beware; your children are learning from your bad behavior.” Here, Johannes Vermeer, the master of tranquility and stillness, shows an intimate street from his hometown of Delft.
In his quiet painting of a humble milkmaid, Vermeer creates a scene where we can almost hear the trickle of the pouring milk█ capturing the beauty of everyday things.
And here, Vermeer draws the curtain to reveal the artist at work.
The floor tiles lead the viewer in to where he█s painting a model.
The studio is a small world unto itself, filled with beautiful and symbolic details: the map of Holland celebrating its trading power█ the golden chandelier— a mark of new wealth█ his fine clothing█.
Everything is crystal-clear, lit by a soft cool light.
The model█s caught in a candid pose█ while the artist— his back to his audience— is just another hard-working Dutchman plying his craft.
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Art Bites 191: Edvard Munch and Expressionism
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Art Bites 190: Romanticism and Romantic Era Painting
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Art Bites 187: Toulouse-Lautrec
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Art Bites 186: Modern Art and the Isms of the 20th Century
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Art Bites 185: Art Nouveau, Mucha, and Gaudí
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Art Bites 184: Vincent van Gogh
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Art Bites 182: Claude Monet and His Waterlilies
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Art Bites 181: Rodin, Impressionism in Sculpting
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Now PlayingArt Bites 179: Northern Baroque Painting: Hals, Steen, Vermeer
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Hals, Steen, Vermeer painted slices of regular life and group portraits of city bigwigs. (4m 53s)
Art Bites 178: Baroque Music, Bernini for Your Ears
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This mini piano concert demonstrates how Baroque music can be like Bernini for your ears. (2m 5s)
Art Bites 177: Rubens, a Master Painter of the Northern Renaissance
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Rubens painted mythic battles, Catholic miracles, bloody hunts, and “Rubenesque” women. (3m 28s)
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Gritty realism, stark lighting, and drama gave Caravaggio’s art an emotional punch. (1m 53s)
Art Bites 175: Bernini and Baroque Sculpture
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Art Bites 174: Baroque Art as Propaganda
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Baroque art was propaganda for the state or for the Church. (3m 29s)
Art Bites 173: Baroque Art, the Catholic Church, and the Virgin Mary
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Pro-Vatican Baroque featured big canvases, dramatic statues, and exuberant architecture. (3m 42s)
Art Bites 172: The Reformation and the Baroque Age
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The roots of Baroque go back to the 1500s when it told the story of the religious wars. (5m 6s)
Art Bites 171: Neoclassical Art, the Age of Revolution, and Napoleon
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Art Bites 170: Neoclassical Art and Architecture, the Age of Enlightenment
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Art Bites 169: Rococo Art and Architecture, Baroque Gone Wild
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Art Bites 168: Royal Palaces of the Baroque Age and Versailles
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Versailles, with its heavenly painted ceilings, was the ultimate Baroque palace. (5m 36s)
Art Bites 167: Royal Portraits and Velázquez
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Art Bites 166: Rembrandt, The Great Dutch Master
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Art Bites 165: Sandro Botticelli
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