DUTCH MASTERS

Holland in the 17th century was home to the most remarkable concentration of artistic talent and accomplishment in modern history, as shown in the incredible story DUTCH MASTERS: THE AGE OF REMBRANDT. Each of the 36 lectures on three DVDs featuring William Kloss is fascinating.

Mr. Kloss talks about how a brief period of less than 100 years in the history of Holland produced some of the greatest artists of all time. The 17th century produced Vermeer, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, and, of course, Rembrandt. This was the time that Holland broke free from Spain and was reformed by the liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ in a fresh and vibrant way. The Gospel reformed painting so that everyday life took on new meaning. Nature declared the glory of God. Religious paintings became more profound, and were inspiring, uplifting, and heartbreaking. To this day, these compelling pictures take our breath away—an unrivaled heritage of portraits, still lifes, landscapes, marine paintings, and profoundly observant images of everyday Dutch life that continue to grace museums throughout Europe and America.

Why are our eyes mesmerized by the glistening stream issuing from the pitcher in Vermeer’s The Milkmaid? How does our understanding deepen with each moment we spend taking in the revealing details of his Woman Holding a Balance? What are the means that create the self-contained intimacy that glows from de Hooch’s A Mother’s Duty, or from his Interior with Women beside a Linen Chest?

Learn What Made the Art of Holland So Special

What was it that made Holland so special, that nourished great masters and produced artists like Jan van de Cappelle, Meindert Hobbema, Jacob van Ruisdael, Pieter Saenredam, Gerard ter Borch, Hendrick Terbrugghen, and so many others?

And what of the extraordinary technical ability of Holland’s artists? They commanded a realistic technique so descriptive and alive that their work seemed like a transcription of life itself. Many people today think of the Dutch artists as “realists.” But is this really true? Were they, instead, the creators of a parallel reality—often preoccupied with concerns of faith and morality, and expressing deeper truths through the familiar realities they were painting?

DUTCH MASTERS: THE AGE OF REMBRANDT will introduce you to the art of 17th-century Holland. It traces the development of this renowned, independent school of painting, and the great seafaring nation that produced the new society that would be reflected in that new art. The course concludes with the achievements of Holland’s greatest and most versatile genius, Rembrandt, whose range of work—including his remarkable etchings—claims the final seven lectures.

This marvelous world is a visually sumptuous one, as William Kloss shows you the work of more than 100 artists and guides you through more than 450 masterful paintings.

How Deep Meaning Can Hide in the Tiniest Detail

Painting by painting, you’ll see how each artist’s technical choices about composition, lighting, color, or brushstrokes, to name a few, contribute to a work’s overall impact and statement. And you’ll see how even the smallest detail of content can speak volumes. For instance, the artist may depict a room and include a painting hanging on a wall within that room, and that painting within the painting may have significant meaning. The same may be true of an artist’s choice of background props or secondary figures in the painting. In Adriaen van Ostade’s stunning ink-and-watercolor Peasants Playing Gallet Outside an Inn, for example, the Haarlem artist’s beautifully wrought images of rural peasant camaraderie, though presented with no small amount of affection, may also contain moral comments about the idleness many Dutch people would have seen in such activity. The man smoking a pipe in the foreground was an accepted symbol of laziness, and a scythe, an instrument of the harvest, remains pointedly unused, hanging from a post above the smoker’s head.

Throughout the lectures, Mr. Kloss shows how such details serve to open windows into the many aspects of Dutch society that gave its artists inspiration and themes, and that create the context for the course.

Dutch artists created paintings that offered insights into history and commerce. They also created great religious works that not only interpret biblical narratives but also address the spiritual conflicts of the period. Holland had a Jewish émigré community, small but vibrant, and the Dutch saw in Jewish history a parallel to their recent struggles; thus there existed a degree of tolerance perhaps unique in all of Europe. Finally, Dutch artists also placed on canvas every facet of daily domestic and social life in “genre” paintings, one of the most characteristic categories of Dutch art.

Whether you’re new to art or an experienced museumgoer, DUTCH MASTERS: THE AGE OF REMBRANDT is a delight, filled with insights into the explosive inventiveness of Dutch art as it interpreted and reinvented the reality of Holland, the most dynamic nation in 17th-century Europe.

Course Lecture Titles

1. Art and Society in 16th-Century Netherlands

2. The Years of Crisis in the Netherlands

3. Art in Haarlem and Utrecht, c. 1530–1625

4. Facing the Truth—Candid Portraits

5. Dutch Portraits, c. 1635–75

6. Frans Hals—The Early Years

7. Frans Hals—Civic Group Portraits

8. Frans Hals—Later Portraits

9. Town and City

10. Daily Life in the Town

11. Daily Life in the Home

12. Music and the Studio

13. Jan Steen—Order and Disorder in Dutch Life

14. Pieter de Hooch and Quietude

15. Art in Delft

16. Johannes Vermeer, c. 1655–60

17. Johannes Vermeer, c. 1660–65

18. Johannes Vermeer, c. 1665–70

19. Still Life Painting, c. 1620–54

20. Still Life Painting, c. 1652–82

21. Landscape Painting—The Early Decades

22. Landscapes of Jan van Goyen and Rembrandt

23. Foreign Landscapes

24. Landscape Painting in the 1640s and 1650s

25. Jacob van Ruisdael

26. Dutch Landscape Painting until 1689

27. Marine Painting

28. The Moral of the Story—History Painting

29. The Decoration of the Amsterdam Town Hall

30. Rembrandt to 1630

31. Rembrandt in Amsterdam, 1631–34

32. Rembrandt and the Baroque Style

33. Rembrandt’s Personal Baroque Style

34. Rembrandt’s Etchings

35. Rembrandt in the 1650s

36. Rembrandt’s Last Years

William Kloss is an Independent Art Historian with the Smithsonian Associates at the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. Kloss has held a teaching fellowship at the University of Michigan, was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for study in Rome, and was an assistant professor of art history at the University of Virginia, where he taught 17th- and 18th-century European art and 19th-century French art. His courses were very highly rated by undergraduate and graduate students. Mr. Kloss serves on the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, a presidential appointment he has held since 1990. He is the author of several books, including Art in the White House: A Nation’s Pride, and, most recently, co-author of United States Senate Catalogue of Fine Art. He has written articles published in Winterthur Portfolio, Antiques, American Art Quarterly, and Antiques & Fine Art.

The 36-lecture video series on three DVDs rivals any movie for capturing and holding attention, and it surpasses almost every movie in providing profound useful information for the mind, the soul, and the spirit. Whether or not you love great art, you will love this series, and every child and every adult should be introduced to it.

That said, there are some archetypal, classic paintings in the series that reveal aspects of the human anatomy, whether it’s Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson showing a cadaver or treatments on the theme of love, pointing toward spiritual grace. Not one of these pictures is salacious, but a caution is required for younger children.