The history of painting in the Netherlands, from the origins to the 20th century, analyzed in terms of different axes of influence, style and clientele, with a fine selection of illustrations.
[Painting in the Netherlands] The entire history of art in the Netherlands, from the Romanesque tradition to the rise of the analytical spirit and the development of oil painting technique; the great period of the Flemish Renaissance to Mannerist culture; the formation of a Dutch identity to the formation of the Belgian national school; all the way to the poetics of modernity and new contemporary issues.
The focal point of the debate is the question of the complex relationships between the art worlds of Belgium and Holland, in an attempt to clarify the extent to which they can be seen as a single cultural context with different local accents and developments.
The volume analyzes the progress of painting in the complex situation of political, economic, religious and social conditions, approaching different planes of interpretation ranging from particular attention to technical-scientific-material aspects to an iconological focus, from composition to forms, color and materic values of the subjects depicted.