Picturing Men and Women in the Dutch Golden Age

"The experience of a person today who views paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and other Dutch Old Masters differs radically from the experience of the Dutch man or woman who may have seen the same paintings three centuries ago. This book focuses on the way in which paintings were displayed and comprehended in seventeenth-century Holland. It offers many unexpected insights into life in the Dutch Golden Age as well as new ways of interpreting the paintings of this period." "Klaske Muizelaar and Derek Phillips closely examine who owned and who viewed paintings, where they were displayed, how accurately paintings portrayed their subjects, what functions paintings served, and how they reflected and influenced the lives of Dutch people of the time. Three centuries ago, museums did not exist and few paintings hung in the churches or public buildings of Holland. Most paintings adorned the homes of the wealthy. The authors consider the composition and development of Dutch society, particularly in Amsterdam, then examine life in affluent Dutch homes. They consider men and women as the producers, subjects, and viewers of art, uncovering assumptions about the nature of men and women, ideals of sexually appropriate conduct, and the actual sexual practices of everyday life. The book concludes with an examination of what is altered when works that were created to be viewed in the home become museum objects."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.