Dutch Painting

I started learning history of art with a visit to Vatican Museums. I was fascinated by works of Michelangelo on Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. I did not even know that Creation of Adam was a ceiling painting and it is there before entering the chapel. …

The fate of Judith Leyster and her work is the perfect example of toxic gender bias and inequality in art history. Also, we can learn that fools are everywhere. — She was one of the first women accepted to the Guild of St. Luke in Haarlem (1633). At that time, the indisputable star among artists in this Dutch city was Frans Hals, a genius portraitist and genre painter, famous for his loose brushwork.

The Dutch master, Johannes Vermeer, bequeathed only 35 paintings to posterity, though some are undoubtedly lost, and others have been judged spurious. Still, in an age where painters needed to flatter the nobility to obtain a constant stream of commissions, Vermeer seems to have painted slowly and somewhat grudgingly. He…

Hard-core Vermeer devotees, including myself, dream nothing more than to making a new connection, no matter how insignificant. Unless someone else has beaten me to the mark, which is not particularly difficult to imagine, here is one more attempt. You must admit, Conrad van der Brugghen’s tapestry does bear a…