art of the XVI century Dutch art of the XVI century

The development of Dutch art

Under the rule of Emperor Charles V, the entire region of the Netherlands, representing at this time from the Friesland north to the Walloon south part of the German Empire, enjoyed in the first half of the XVI century the richest flourishing of trade, industry and the arts. Antwerp quickly gained leadership. The kinship of artistic aspirations connected all parts of the region into a single artistic whole, despite local differences, thanks to the fact that the masters were invited from town to town. On the contrary, under the Spanish rule of Philip II in the second half of the century, Dutch unity died down in the streams of noble blood. After the separation of the southern provinces, which remained Spanish and Catholic, from the northern, which became Protestant and independent, the new frontier passed through the region of Low German language, as at that time the Dutch themselves called their dialects. It is not surprising, therefore, that the difference in the field of artistic creation was formed only gradually. By the end of the century, it really happened, and next to the Flemish national art was Dutch, which has a special imprint, and earlier in the architecture than in painting.

Until the middle of the century, Dutch art developed almost in parallel with German art. This was followed by decades of deliberately flirting with the Italian Renaissance, which, however, quite soon was given a strong national rebuff. The art of the Netherlands gradually became familiar with alien forms and, reworking them in an independent national spirit, turned them into their own property, and this national incidental flow grew during the transition to the XVII century into that mighty stream that carried the life and beauty.

Along the way, we will hear with sorrow how many Flemish and Dutch workshops of the sixteenth century were killed in the Netherlands wars for freedom. In 1554, during the war of Charles V and Henry II of France, the newly rebuilt first castles of the Dutch Renaissance were again destroyed, and in August 1566, during the first explosion of the uprising in Brabant and Flanders, three hundred churches and chapels were looted, and their artistic treasures lounging on the streets are plundered. Therefore, it is for the Netherlands that it is often possible to get a different, more luxurious artistic and historical picture from a review of the sources published in the Penshar collection and from the messages of writers that go back to Guicciardini, than from a review of the surviving works that we however, we will mainly stick.