Looking at seventeenth-century Dutch art : realism reconsidered

Despite the active tradition of scholarship on Dutch painting of the seventeenth century, scholars continue to grapple with the problem of how the strikingly realistic characteristics of art from this period can be reconciled with its possible meanings. With the advent of new methodologies, these debates have gained momentum in the past decade. Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art, which includes classic essays as well as contributions especially written for this volume, provides a timely survey of the principal interpretative methods and debates, from their origins in the 1960s to current manifestations, while suggesting potential avenues of inquiry for the future. The book offers fascinating insights into the meaning of Dutch art in its original cultural context as well as into the world of scholarship that it has inspired.

• Introduction Wayne Franits
• 1 On the history of research concerning the interpretation of Dutch painting Konrad Renger
• 2 A seventeenth-century theory of art: nature and practice Jan Emmens
• 3 Realism and seeming realism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting Eddy de Jongh
• 4 Picturing Dutch culture Svetlana Alpers
• 5 Tobacco, social deviance and Dutch art in the seventeenth century Ivan Gaskell
• 6 Didactic and disguised meanings? Several seventeenth-century texts on painting and the iconographical approach to Dutch paintings of this period Eric Jan Sluijter
• 7 Dutch seventeenth-century genre painting: a reassessment of some current hypotheses Peter Hecht
• 8 Ter Borch's ladies in satin Alison Kettering
• 9 Style in Dutch art Walter Liedtke
• 10 Naturalism as convention: subject, style and artistic self-consciousness in Dutch landscape Lawrence O. Goedde
• 11 Natural artifice and material values in Dutch still life Celeste Brusati
• 12 The three-quarter length life-sized portrait in seventeenth-century Holland: the cultural functions of Tranquillitas Ann Jensen Adams
• 13 How to sit, stand or walk: towards a historical anthropology of Dutch paintings and prints Herman Roodenburg
• 14 The space of gender in seventeenth-century Dutch painting Elizabeth Alice Honig