Tranquility and Violence in the Golden Era of Dutch Painting

An in-depth study of Dutch seventeeth-century paintings of the Golden Era that express the value of domestic tranquility and civic order in a society whose freedom was born out of violent wars of independence from Catholic Spain. In the homely morality and titillating indiscretions of Dutch genre and landscape painting we contemplate an art that reflects a bourgeois society that anticipates our own yet weirdly differs from it. In a subplot we also investigate the vital importance of attention to bird life in appreciating pictorial compositions. 

Richard Read is Emeritus Professor and Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, Perth. He is widely published and presents art lectures in an engaging and informative way for all audiences.

Hosted by Tresillian Arts Centre.

Image Credit: A Girl Asleep, 1657, Johannes Vermeer