The Baroque in Flanders and the Netherlands

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The Baroque in Flanders and Netherlands

Flanders was ruled by the Spanish at the time of the baroque at movement . The society was made up of Flemish citizens who were mainly catholic aristocrats and traditionalists . The most famous painter to come out of this region was Rubens , while the major art centre was based in Antwerp . The major supporters of this cultural movement were the state and the church . Netherlands was an independent Dutch country that practiced the protestant faith . The society was made up of puritanical and

wealthy farmers , traders and seafarers . The major art centers were in Amsterdam , Haarlem and Delft while the movement produced the likes of Rembrandt , Hals and Vermeer . The patrons of baroque were the militias and private parties which partly explains the paucity of religious paintings as opposed to portraits , landscapes and still-life

Antony van Dyck , later Sir , was a Flemish baroque artist who became famous working in England . One of his most famous paintings was that of King Charles ? of England with his family . He was one of the first artists to experiment with watercolors and etching in his paintings . He worked for Peter Rubens for a while before venturing overseas to develop his career . His stylistic form of painting was greatly influenced by Titian whose use of color and passive modeling of form led him to adopt these methods . Most of his portraits portrayed the subjects as stylish and beautiful thus creating demand for his works

Peter Paul Rubens was also a Flemish baroque whose style emphasized color , movement and sensuality though they were short on detail . His major works included portraits , landscapes and counter-reformation altarpieces . He mainly painted scenes that depicted allegorical and mythological settings . His base was in Antwerp where he had a large studio and trained other artists like van Dyck . Rubens visited Italy and studied Greek and Roman art . While there he did his first altarpiece St . Helena with the True Cross . He favored the use of oil sketches and wooden frames for his paintings . Most of his portraits of women depicted them as full bodied thus coining of the term Rubensian ' or 'Rubenesque for suchlike females . He was appointed a diplomat to various countries and was instrumental in trying to bring peace to the region . Towards the end of his life , he concentrated on the painting landscapes like Farmers Returning from the Fields

Rembrandt van Rijn was a baroque from Netherlands . His style of painting portrayed various aspects of portraiture , narrative painting and landscapes . His portraits depicted the subjects in an exuberant and lively mood as opposed to the rigid like figures of his contemporaries A lot of his religious paintings drew inspiration from the New Testament paintings . His life was filled with tragedy and he painted emotional scenes from his own experiences that helped many people identify with him . They considered him a democrat because he painted scenes from the every day life of the common man as opposed to the lives of the...