The
Justus D. Doenecke
Professor Emeritus of History
New
If one looked at
one would find on a northwestern corner of the European continent a nation of some
3 million people that could well have been the wealthiest country,
certainly of
It was the greatest industrial
nation of
It was the richest commercial nation
of
Its exchange was the leading trading mart of the world
Its bank dictated the currency values of the world
Its empire stretched from Java to
the
And in a sense nothing could be more surprising,
for this nation--
known as the United
Provinces of the
had just
been through a very bloody revolt against
And to appreciate what one can call the Dutch miracle,
one has to know just a bit about the Dutch revolt
For centuries,
the
the
that is the modern
kingdoms of the
and the
grand duchy of
And for these centuries neither a Dutch nor a Belgian nationality existed
In the 11 northern provinces,
the people spoke German dialects,
which evolved into the Dutch language
The word Dutch itself comes from the Dutch word Duits,
meaning "of the people"
In the 6 southern provinces, the people spoke French dialects
But neither here nor elsewhere in
to do with political borders
The
But the
no sense of difference from the southern provinces
Each was a state or country unto itself
Only later was
By the 15th century,
one by one,
they had
been inherited or purchased or conquered by the dukes of
an
area between today's
In 1477 Duchess Mary of
Burgundy married Maximilian I
Maximilian is emperor of
the House of Hapsburg
The Hapsburgs ruled the
a jerrybuilt
structure that had
Maximilian and Mary produced a son, Emperor Charles V (1500-58)
The portrait you see here of Charles (1548) is by the Venetian painter Titian
(c. 1490-1576)
It's hanging
in
It shows him aging,
afflicted with gout
Charles is of the Hapsburg
dynasty
He himself had been
born in the
in the city
of
As long as Charles ruled,
the Dutch could exercise a good deal of local autonomy,
that is they had much self government
The Dutch nobles controlled the countryside
The Dutch merchants controlled the cities
In other words, Charles ruled with a relatively gentle hand
But once Charles split his empire,
which he did in 1556,
and once he gave the Dutch portion of it to his son Philip II (1527-98),
trouble began
Here is a portrait, again by Titian
It's located in
Philip was the most powerful prince
in
He headquartered his branch of the
Hapsburgs in
He saw himself as a Spaniard
He always spoke Spanish
And unlike his father,
he was
ignorant of the 2 main languages of the
Dutch and French
And Philip looked at the
First, the
who lived
primarily in
They were the richest jewel in the imperial crown
They were the source of 2/5 of the enormous revenue Philip needed to
fight his many expensive wars
Indeed, Philip spent so much that he declared bankruptcy 3 times
Second, in Philip's eyes,
the
a growing Protestant movement centering around the teachings of
John Calvin (1509-64)
Calvinism is very similar to Lutheranism,
but with more of a theological system
and with more religious involvement in secular society
Calvinism had first been
brought into the southern part of the
that is to
such cities as Tournai and
brought in by French-speaking Huguenots
It then moved into the
cities of the northern
where it mixed with Anabaptists already there
Philip was a militant Roman Catholic
He desired nothing more than to stamp out what he saw as rank heresy
Now Philip soon does certain things that maximize his unpopularity
Some of Philip's actions were religious
Philip brings the
Inquisition into the
Hence special courts are established to try heretics,
to execute heretics
The Inquisition was so
hated that even the city council of
all of whose members were Catholics,
denounced the leading inquisitor
Philip transferred positions in the Roman Catholic church from Dutch nobles
to Spanish officials
The majority of Dutch people were not yet Protestant
Most of the Dutch nobles were not yet Protestant
But all classes resented what they saw as foreign interference
Other actions of Philip were political
Philip took away the local autonomy that Charles V had permitted
That is, he
exercised direct rule from
Spanish officials came in to rule the country directly
Philip made his half sister Margaret of Parma (1522-86) regent of
the
Hence the Dutch perceive the Spaniards as a hostile occupying power
Philip also levied backbreaking taxes
He knows the
He sees them
as vital to
So he wants to bleed this nation dry
In a sense Philip wants to Dutch to pay for their own occupation
Therefore from 1672 to 1609,
the Dutch fought a very bloody war of rebellion
Heading the Spanish armies was the Duke of Alva or Alba (1508-1582),
who had long called for a crackdown on the Dutch,
who came accompanied by an army of 10,000 men in 1567
Alva a figure straight out of the world of El Greco
He's straight, tall, thin,
with dark eyes, yellow skin, silver beard
He's 59 years old when
he goes to the
Alva was given dictatorial powers and he used them
In 1567 he established what the Dutch called the Council of Blood to
root out religious heretics and political rebels
Within 1567 and 1573,
the council tried over 12,000 people
Of these 12,000, 9,000 lost some or all of their property
Over 1100 were executed
Alva also raised taxes ever further--
1% on all real or personal properly,
5% on the sale of landed property,
10% on the sale of all movable goods
Heading the Dutch nationalists was William of Orange (1533-1584)
According to Marvin O'Connell's study of the counter-reformation
(The Counter Reformation, 1559-1610-- 1974),
William was religiously tolerant as no other public man of his time
William had
been born a Lutheran, in
He was raised a Catholic
He became a Lutheran again
He ended up a Calvinist
Here we have a painting of William of Orange (c. 1588) by Adriaan Key
It's
located in
Key
(1544-1589) lived in
this portrait
So did William himself
So it's likely William sat for this
It's the portrait of a troubled man
And we'll see that William has reason to be troubled
William is tall, athletic, eloquent, courteous
He's no great military strategist but he's able in politics
He has persistence
He is courageous
He had first gotten along with Philip
Indeed he had named a son Philip William
It's Alva that turns William into a rebel
Now this war involves tremendous bloodshed,
tremendous destruction
You had anarchy
You had revolution
You had civil war
Protestants seized Roman Catholic churches and turned them into Calvinist ones
Catholic land was taken
Even gold and silver plate was seized
Dutch nationalists flooded the area
of
so the Spanish army could not operate there [1573]
Conversely the Spaniards massacred the inhabitants of two towns,
Zutphen and Naarden [1572]
They killed all the
Dutch soldiers in the town of
Unpaid Spanish troops rioted in
looting and pillaging and stealing on a massive scale in the wealthiest urban
trade center
in
Professor Andrew Fix, in his lectures for the Teaching Company,
calls
("The Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Rise of Nations"-- 2005)
In 1584 a religious fanatic killed William of Orange
William himself had been in a bind
He wanted to unite all the Dutch people
If you're Protestant,
if you're Catholic,
it doesn't matter
Get the Spaniards off our backs
William wanted a broad nationalist consensus,
a kind of popular front
Before he converted to Calvinism, he said:
"I am no Calvinist but it seems to me neither right,
nor worthy of a Christian,
to seek for the sake of religious differences to have this land swarming
with troops and inundated with blood
There must be a compromise"
He proclaimed religious freedom for Catholics as soon as his troops took a territory
But his leading naval force, the so-called Sea Beggars,
and many of his troops, the so-called Wild Beggars, were militant Calvinists
Protestants murdered Catholic clergy in several cities,
including
They ousted Catholic magistrates in
such cities as
All this puts William in a bind
If William wanted to maximize his military strength,
he needs the militant Protestant armies but he antagonizes the Catholics
If William wanted to create a political consensus,
he needs the Catholics but antagonizes the militant Calvinist Protestants
He tried to be as comprehensive as he could
He was so quiet about the reasons for his conversion to Calvinism he was given
the nickname William the Silent
The Spanish finally adopted the strategy of breaking up the Dutch coalition
They appeased the southern provinces which were more Catholic
and which often spoke French, not Dutch
Here the aristocracy still saw itself as ruling over a feudal area
It was far less nationalistically oriented
By what was called the Union of Arras (Ar-ah) of 1579,
the southern provinces gave their allegiance to the Spanish Hapsburgs
They agreed to make Catholicism the official religion
In return they received much political autonomy
And they had their taxes reduced
Henceforth this southern region was called the Spanish Netherlands
In 1713 it was
transferred to
In 1830 it became the
independent nation of
Even now
half the population of
of German stock close to the Dutch
The other half of this area is Walloon
People there speak French
Look at Belgian postage stamps
You'll see the nation is bilingual
It is in response to
the Union of Arras that the 7
the Union of Utrecht or Atrecht (Oot-rect) in 1579
This union was modeled on the Swiss confederation
Each province gave up powers concerning war and defense to a central body
Each of the 7 provinces had considerable autonomy in all other matters
The opening statement of the
"The people are not created by God for the sake of the Prince...
but, on the contrary, the Prince was made for the good of the people"
Each province also had the power to decide the religious question for itself
What was the result?
Each of the 7 provinces banned Roman Catholic worship
William of Orange was opposed to this
He saw this action as terribly divisive,
as burning bridges
He waited 4 months before signing on himself
Now in 1581 this Union of Utrecht formed a brand new country,
the Republic of the
Seven United
or more simply the United Provinces of the Netherlands
So the
There was a rebellious north
There was a Spanish-controlled south
The big rivers of the area divided the 2 nations
Many Calvinists in the south moved north so the south--
that is the
modern
became solidly Catholic
At the same time,
the United Provinces were not a totally Protestant people
Probably as many as 1/3 remained Catholic
Fighting still continued for close to 20 years
But
It took on the British who were raiding their shipping
and who were encouraging the Dutch rebels
But in 1588 the British defeated the Spanish Armada
This defeat ended
Philip's dream of bringing northern
Catholic fold
But for the Dutch things were still uneasy
For
So in 1609 a military truce was declared
As a result of this truce,
the United Provinces received de facto independence
In 1618 war broke out again,
but on far less a scale
In 1648, at the end of the 30 Years War,
the independence of the United Provinces was recognized by treaty
The agreement was called the Treaty of Munster
During all this time,
the United Provinces became a republic
Indeed it was the first republic of
any major nation in
But the Dutch had not planned it this way
The move was strictly by accident
Indeed we have a kind of accidental republic
Now as the United Provinces had
broken from
had refused to recognize Philip II as monarch,
it sought a monarch for-- after all--
all governments were headed by monarchs
It asked the Austrian archduke, one Mattias, to take over
Mattias accepted
But once he
arrived in
he found himself unacceptable to the population
The United Provinces then asked a Frenchman,
Fran ois,
Duke of
But it was soon apparent he did not have the ability
It even asked Queen Elizabeth of England to be the Dutch queen
But she already headed a powerful Protestant nation
She did not want to get entangled on the continent
So this new nation drifted into republic status
And like many modern republics,
there is a division of power
There are checks and balances
There is an assembly, a legislative branch, called the States General
It met in
which was the de facto capital of this new republic
The States General is made up of deputies chosen
by the local assemblies of the 7 provinces
These local assemblies are called Provincial States
And these deputies get orders from the Provincial States on just how they should
vote in the States General
Indeed, every time a new issue arose in the States General,
the deputies had to go home to the Provincial States for instructions
One is not empowered to vote one's conscience
One takes orders from the local elites
There is also an executive branch,
composed of 2 offices
First is called the Grand Pensioner
First the Grand Pensioner was lawyer and adviser to the States
Later he became leader of States General
The Grand Pensioner is the de facto prime minister
He is in charge of the government
And he is always an educated, middle class professional,
that is a lawyer or a scholar
And he
represents a distinct economic group in
the city governments, the middle class commercial leaders
The second office is that of the Stadtholders-- plural
For there is no stadtholder for the United Provinces as a whole
Each province has its own executive,
its own elected stadtholder
The holder of this office commands the province's military forces
The post evolved from the office of the Spanish governor of the
But most provinces usually elected the same man as stadtholder
This man is usually the head of the House of Orange
William of Orange had been a stadtholder,
but only for 2 provinces--
William's son, Prince Maurice of Nassau (1567-1625; Nah-sow),
was the big stadtholder from 1584 to 1625
During much of this time,
he
commanded Dutch armies against
William
III (1650-1702), who became king of
had been a stadtholder
Now in contrast to the Grand Pensioner,
who represented the cities,
the stadtholder represented the nobles
He represented the rural areas
Jonathan Israel,
in his
massive book The
Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806 (1995),
shows something of the complexity of this office
Now given the different constituencies of the two offices,
you almost have a situation similar to that of political parties
There is a unique balance in this government
Power is always shifting back and forth
For a while, one office would be dominant
Then the other office would be the more important
And remember the Grand Pensioner represented the merchants, commerce;
the Stadtholder the nobles, large estates, agriculture
But one element does not grow at the expense of the other
The nobles tended to seek the
renewal of war with
Historically nobles in
The urban merchants are more likely
to want to bury the hatchet with
They want peace
Why? Because they believe peace is needed for trade, for industry
Now one great earmark of the Dutch republic is the fabulous economic boom,
one based on shipping
As early as 1600 the Dutch had 10,000 ships
By 1620
Throughout most of the 17th century,
they owned most of the
shipping of
They sailed on every sea
They explored the waters around
Spitzenberg at the top of
They almost monopolized Arctic whaling
They would enter the Pacific by way
of
They would round
which by the way is
named after the Dutch
In 1602 they organized the East India Company
In 1919 they founded the city of
now the city of
Not long after 1600 they reached
In 1912 they founded their first
settlement on
I grew up in
with reminders
of the Dutch everywhere in greater
New
They were also Dutch colonies at
Bahia in
at Curacao in the
at the Cape of Good Hope
in
It's little wonder that the Dutch play a major role in geography
They are cartographers, navigators
They make nautical instruments
Look at Vermeer's painting The Geographer (c.1668) (1632-1675) (ver-mayr)
It's in the major art gallery of Frankfurt
Robert Palmer in his History of Modern World (9th ed.; 2002) tells us to
take a good look at this painting
You've got an immaculately scrubbed and dusted Dutch interior characteristic
of Vermeers' stress on purity,
on a sense of calm
But you also have nothing less than a symbol of the modern world in its youth
There is the pale northern sunlight streaming through the window
There's the globe, the map
There are the dividers in the right hand
There is the cross square used to measure the elevation of the sun and stars
There is the sea chart on the wall
There is what could be a tapestry flung over the table or is it an Oriental rug
brought in from the east
There is the geographer's head lifted up in thought,
his eyes resting on an invisible world of fresh discoveries,
of opening horizons
Look also Vermeer's The Astronomer (c.1668), a companion piece
It's in the Louvre
The painting shows a celestial globe and this globe is quite accurate
This work too reveals the limitless scope of Dutch inquiry,
moreover the whole scientific impulse found in the early modern period
This shipping boom is fostered by control of the carrying trade and the Baltic trade
The Dutch dominated the cargo trade
That is, they were most successful in carrying the goods of other nations
in Dutch ships
Half of
The English author Daniel Defoe said the Dutch were-- and I quote--
"the waggoners of the waves,
the carryers of the world,
the middle person in trade...
They buy to sell again,
take in to send out"
And the Dutch were able to do this because they had very low freight rates
And they had low freight rates because they designed a special new kind of ship, the fluyt
The fluyt is a huge tub-like vessel that has a large hull
Hence it can contain much freight
But the rigging system of the fluyt is very simple and deck is very narrow,
very small
So you don't need a large crew to sail the boat
You are cutting crew costs
At the same time,
you are maximizing the amount of freight to be carried
And when your crew runs away in a foreign port,
as it is likely to do as it had been Shanghaied in the first place,
you can easily bring another crew on
Also the fluyt is small enough so it can go long distances without putting in to
port
The Dutch also monopolized the Baltic grain trade
Massive amounts of grain is produced in such eastern European regions as the
Once this grain reaches
the
Dutch vessels would carry this grain to such
nations as
But this grain would not
reach
Rather it would be stored in such ports as
If you ever visit
you notice 2 things
First, the many canals there are wide enough to give ships access to the
center of the city
Second, there are narrow high buildings on these canals that serve as warehouses
The Dutch would store this grain in the warehouse
They would let the price of this grain grow higher and higher
Finally the price would be high enough for the Dutch to make a tidy profit
And the Dutch take this money and they go into banking
In 1609 they found the Bank of
They found it at a time when European money is in chaos
There were a lot of different coins
throughout
The great monarchs of
Small states in
Even private persons minted coins
But, under inflationary pressures,
many of these people debased their coins
That is, they added more alloy while still leaving the old coins in circulation
Therefore, anyone handling money would get a mass of coins whose value was
uncertain
Now what the Bank of Amsterdam does is accept deposits of all these coins from all
these peoples and all these countries
It would assess their gold and silver content in all these coins
It would allow depositors to withdraw equivalent values in gold florins minted by the
Bank of
for the Dutch florin had an unchanging weight and purity
Thus Dutch currency became sought after everywhere
It was an international measure of value
And of course there is a capitalist ethos everywhere
The philosopher Ren Descartes wrote,
"Every man thinks only of himself and his business interests,
and whoever has nothing to do with business and trade...is completely
disregarded"
When the British Ambassador, Sir William Temple,
reported on
his visit to
"The merchants and tradesmen are of mighty industry
Never any country traded so much and consumed so little
They buy infinitely, but 'tis to
sell again
They are the great masters of Indian spices and Persian silks,
but wear plain woolen and feed upon their own fish and roots
They sell the finest of their
cloth to Europe and buy coarse out of
They send abroad the best of their
own butter and buy the cheapest out of
their own use
They furnish infinite luxury which they never practice,
and traffic in pleasures which they never taste"
And
"Their common riches," he writes, "lie in every man's spending less than he has
coming in"
Not only did their frugality,
their asceticism exclude any idle indulgence
to leave the Dutch no time for love
"Their tempers are not airy enough for joy nor warm enough for love
This [love] is talked of sometimes among the younger men,
but as a thing they have heard of,
rather than felt
I have known some that impersonated lovers well enough,
but none that I ever thought were at heart in love"
"Out of such a nation can come neither good conversation nor great statesmanship"
There is another way of getting at this ethos--
Rembrandt's Masters of the Cloth Hall (1662)
It's in the Rijksmuseum in
Robert Palmer analyses this work too
Here you have a group of men who are about to speak from the canvas
They are inclined slightly forward
They appear as intent on their business as a courtroom judge would be concerning a hearing
They are stern
They have the look of intelligence
But they are not entrepreneurial hucksters
They are calculating but not cunning
They are determined to drive a hard bargain but are honest
And I think one can say that it is
men of this kind who conducted the commerce and government of
And note their sober black cloaks and their clean white collars
Note how these are set against the finely carved woodwork and the rich table-covering of the cloth hall
What is this work saying?
Is it not saying that personal vanity must yield to collective undertakings,
that personal simplicity must be maintained in the midst of material opulence
But all this does not mean that the Dutch businessman lacked enjoyment in their everyday life
Look at the families of the merchant class
They tended to spoil their children,
at least it seemed so to the less indulgent French,
for there was no corporal punishment at home or in school
Their adolescent daughters appeared to be saucy
Their wives seemed independent and self-assured
They were often well-heeled in their own right
These families treated their servants amiably
And their houses reflected an individualistic spirit
If the Florentine merchant princes erected places,
and if the German millionaires erected cluttered townhouses,
the Dutch patroon built a more modest but comfortable dwelling
At the beginning of the 17th century,
not much had changed from the middle ages
You have a few tables
You have cupboards
You have a linen closet
You have several beds built into the walls
You have a desk
But, as the century went on,
some luxuries are introduced
The decor becomes more refined
Walls are covered with tapestries,
with gilded leather
Satins come in
So do rugs
So do porcelains
Houses became full of pictures
In the brief essay on your CD disk "Art in History, History in Art,"
David Freedberg and Jan de Vries note that those of the highest
income averaged 41 paintings per household
Those of the lowest income average 7 per household
You
can see the difference by looking at two pictures of Pieter de Hooch
(1629-1684)
In 1560 he paints very clean simple interiors
This work is titled A Woman Drinking with Two Men
It's in the Louvre
Within a few years the interiors are very elaborate
Here we have another work by de Hooch
It's called The Card Players (c. 1664)
It's also in the Louvre
Here's where you start getting the gold Spanish leather on the walls
But there is one thing about the house of any Dutch merchant
It was neat
It was functional
Its inside was absolutely spotless
There was no carpet but the tile was gleaming
It was scoured daily
One Frenchman wrote,
"Dutchwomen pride themselves on the cleanliness of their house and
furniture to an unbelievable degree
They never seem to stop washing and scrubbing all the wooden furniture
and fittings'
You've got high wide windows affording a maximum of sunlight
You've got groves of precisely planted trees surrounding this house
Now, although the Dutch were so successful in commerce,
agriculture was far from forgotten
Farming was a source of great wealth
Indeed,
agriculture
Before the 17th century,
most farming in most countries was carried on at a subsistence level
That is, people raised what they could consume personally
There was no market for any surplus
But
In the northern
So it was easy to transport farm produce and sell it close by
This puts cash in the hands of peasants
It creates a new demand for commercial and industrial products
But do not think that everyone is rich or everyone is middle class
This rich world of art can be somewhat misleading
Painters during this time did not focus on poor people
There were plenty of workhouses and poor houses and slums
There was much child labor
A laborer could work over 14 hours a day for a few pennies
An able bodied seaman might run a
50-50 chance of not returning from the
But his salary was 2 to 3 guilders per week,
about $15 in today's terms
As Hans Koningberger notes in his book The World of Vermeer, 1632-1675 (1967),
the Dutch Golden Age was no Golden Age for half the population
Robert Wallace notes the same thing in The World of Rembrandt, 1606-1669 (1968)
For example, in 1640, in
Rembrandt's birthplace of
most of the city's 20,000 textile workers lived in huts furnished
only with straw litter
Incidentally, as Arnold Hauser notes in his Social History of Art ( Amer. ed., 1951),
most Dutch painters, even the prominent ones,
lived in miserable circumstances
They needed to supplement their income
Van Goyen traded in tulips
Hobbema was a tax collector
Van de Velde was the proprietor of a linen business
Jan Steen and Aert van der Velde were innkeepers
At times Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer all worried about money
Now underlying all this prosperity was religious toleration
There is far greater toleration than in any other European state
Calvinism, also called the Reformed faith, was the official church
To hold government office you have to be a Calvinist
But no citizen is forced to belong to the Reformed church
The state church is not imposed on anyone
In fact, one need not profess any religion at all
Indeed Calvinism grew very slowly
Until well into the 17th century,
Calvinism was a small minority
At the beginning of the century,
only about 10% of the population was Calvinist
And Brad Gregory notes in his lectures for the Teaching Company
("The History of Christianity in the Reformation Era," 2001),
many magistrates did not want to replace a severe Catholic society
with a severe Calvinist one
Conversely, many Calvinist preachers wanted to be darned choosy about
who are let into full membership in the congregation,
that is they don't want nominal Christians with what they see as
worldly standards
And clergy and the magistrates fought over all kinds of things
Who is to appoint the parish clergy, the church or the state?
Who is in charge of the schools?
What should be the content of religious instruction?
Who administers poor relief?
Indeed early in the 17th century,
Dutch Calvinists officially divided,
as
some sought to tone down the doctrine of
double predestination
What double predestination simply means is that God has not only
foreordained some people for salvation from eternity
He has foreordained some people for damnation from eternity
This doctrine was challenged by a theologian at the University of
Arminius says God wills the salvation of all and will give salvation
to all who truly repent and believe in Christ
In 1618, at the Synod of Dord,
Arminianism was repudiated
The more rigid Calvinist party won out
One old man was put to death
But in 1632 Arminianism was tolerated
Roman Catholics could not have official churches
But they could meet in homes
Theoretically these meetings were secret
In reality, these house churches were quite above board
Indeed, in 17th century
there were twice as many admitted small Catholic house churches as
there were Calvinist churches
We tend to forget that Vermeer was a Roman Catholic,
that Jan Steen was a Catholic
Mennonites also prospered
These are followers of Menno Simons (1946-1561) (Mean-oh),
an Anabaptist reformer from Frisia who preached pacifism
Unlike other Dutch Anabaptists,
these Mennonites were seen as assets to the community because
they proved to be so constructive,
so skilled,
so useful
By the 17th century,
the
Mennonites were one of the largest groups in the
In the national
one can see
Rembrandt's famous painting The Mennonite Minister
Cornelis Claesz (1641)
Note the rhetorical gesture of the preacher as he expounds the word
as his wife listens attentively
Note also the sacred books on the richly carpeted working table
Jews prospered as well
As early as 1657 Jews were recognized as Dutch citizens
Most Jews were from
Note Rembrandt's famous picture The Jewish Bride (c. 1665),
a portrait commissioned by a Sephardic family
And this religious toleration lead to broader intellectual toleration,
to an open society
One manifestation of this is seen in printing
Books are printed in huge numbers,
some of them books that were not allowed to be printed elsewhere
People will come to the United Provinces just to write their books and have
these books printed
Another manifestation is found in universities
In 1675 the first Dutch university
is established at
It was almost on a par
with the universities of
It was particularly famous for its oriental studies
And foreign
intellectuals find they can work in
Take the Frenchman Pierre Bayle
("bell") (1647-1706) who taught at
Bayle propounded the idea that morality was independent of religion,
not a popular teaching at the time
Take the philosopher and political theorist John Locke (1632-1704),
the father of British empiricism,
the author of the famous treaties on civil government
In 1683, he had to flee
Take another philosopher, Ren Descartes (1596-1650)
Descartes was a Frenchman who served in the army of Maurice of Nassau
Descartes commented,
"There is no country in which freedom is more complete,
security greater, crime rarer,
the simplicity of ancient manners more perfected here"
But the United Provinces also had plenty of homegrown intellectuals
Take Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677),
who came
from a family of Sephardic refugees from
His writings were deemed so heretical that they were banned in most countries
But Spinoza works in
total freedom in
Then there is Anton van Leewenhoek (1632-1723),
like Spinoza a lens grinder
Leewenhoek did much to develop the microscope
The authors of the web gallery of art suggest that Leeuwenhoek might have
been the model for Vermeeer's The Geographer
There is Christian Huygens (1629-1695),
a scientist who may be regarded as the connecting link between Galileo and
Huygens made clocks that worked with pendulums
He discovered the rings of Saturn
He launched the wave theory of light
There is Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) (groo-shi-oos),
the great pioneer of international law
Of course, the artist
of the
No period in Dutch history has produced so many outstanding artists
Now as Calvinism banned all imagery from the churches,
there was little demand for religious paintings
Look at this slide of Hendrick van
Vliet's (1611/2-1675) work the Interior of the
Pieterskerk
in
It's right here at the Ringling Gallery
This is the church, by the way, in which the Mayflower pilgrims just before
they
departed to
Notice how stark the interior is
Certainly there are no paintings around
Also, as the United Provinces were a republic,
you did not get pictures of court ceremonials
Dutch art was often secular
It focuses on every daily life
Hence it's a wonderful source for the historian
Sir Kenneth Clark says we knows more about what the 17th Dutch looked like than
we do about any other society (Civilisation, 1969)
Here we get tavern scenes, pastures, farms, seascapes, ships
The success of an art work is not determined by a church or by a court or by a monarch
It's determined by a prosperous middle class wanting to see familiar objects on
the canvas
But what is not painted?
Possibly the most important influence on the new nation--
the war of liberation
The war was the traumatic event of the Dutch experience
But except for a few battle scenes,
a few sea battles,
the war was ignored
Certainly we have plenty of pictures of plenty of soldiers
But these soldiers are shown enjoying themselves
It's as if the Hollanders had seen all the fighting,
all the violence they could stand
They wanted no more of it in their art
Every wealthy burgher family had its portrait gallery,
its collection of paintings
Now why does this empire decline,
because decline it does
The empire peaked around 1650
Then it started to decline,
slowly at first towards the end of the 17th century,
then more rapidly after 1700
There are two major factors
First, for much of the early 17th century,
But by mid-17th century,
things had calmed down
They could vie for what they see as their rightful share of the world's trade
They could build their own merchant marines,
their own carrying fleet
And the English in particular start to move in on the Dutch
They absorb much of the
Dutch commerce with
with
Second, the Dutch enter into wars with the English in 1652 and again in 1654 and again in 1672
These are primarily naval wars,
though in 1672 the Dutch
lost
which was then named after the British successor to the throne,
James II,
the Duke of
In actual fighting,
the Dutch remained a match for the English
But
I 1672 and 1701 The Dutch also fought the French
The French were repulsed but such efforts are always costly
In this exposition, "Time and Transformation in 17th Century Dutch Art,"
there is a wonderful picture called The Destruction of Bodegraven
and Zwammerdam (1672)
The artist is Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708)
The work centers on two
cities just north of
The work shows the French as literal savages
Never again does
Yet if the Dutch ceased being a great political power or even a major industrial center,
they were still prominent in commerce,
in shipping, in finance
They were middlemen, common carriers for other people
Their freight rates remained the
lowest in
They continued to grow rich on
imports from the
And to a large extent,
they simply lived on their investments
They had accumulated capital for over 200 years
they simply lent it out to French entrepreneurs,
to English entrepreneurs
A fact: in the mid-18th century,
1/3 of the capital of the Bank of England belonged to Dutch shareholders
And the Bank of Amsterdam remained the chief clearinghouse,
the
financial center of all
But if the Golden Age was over,
the contribution was lasting,
and nowhere is this contribution more lasting that in its art
and what we will be seeing here at the Ringling this summer