The Dutch Renaissance in a Straightjacket

Abstract

During the last decade, research on Renaissance art and architecture in the northern Netherlands has tried to overcome persistent late nineteenth-century concepts connected to the nation-state, and started to adopt more dynamic ideas of culture and the arts in the period between 1450 and 1620. Especially the geographical divide between Flanders and the Northern Netherlands is increasingly contested, and more attention is being paid to the exchange between the Netherlands and Italy. This more international outlook has resulted in publications on artists such as Adriaen de Vries and Abraham Bloemaert, and architects such as De Keyser. Still, this field is overshadowed by the public attention paid to the Dutch Golden Age, and its essentialist interpretation continues to have an impact on the way the preceding period is studied. As a result, there still exists a rather fragmented idea of what ‘Renaissance’ means with respect to the arts in the Netherlands.