Organised by National Gallery of Art
Among the most enduring images of the Dutch Golden Age are genre paintings, or scenes of daily life, from the third quarter of the seventeenth century. Made during a time of unparalleled innovation and prosperity, these exquisite portrayals of refined Dutch society—elegant men and women writing letters, playing music, and tending to their daily rituals—present a genteel world that is extraordinarily appealing. Today, Johannes Vermeer is the most celebrated of these painters thanks to the beauty and tranquility of his images. Yet other masters, among them Gerard ter Borch, Gerrit Dou, Frans van Mieris, and Gabriel Metsu, also created works that are remarkably similar in style, subject matter, and technique. The visual connections between these artists’ paintings suggest a robust atmosphere of innovation and exchange—but to what extent did they inspire each other’s work, and to what extent did they follow their own artistic evolution?
To view the online exhibition, please use this link (remove the spaces when pasting the URL into your browser): https://artsandculture. google. com/exhibit/vermeer-and-the-masters-of-genre-painting/rwKCpEfplLwhJg?hl=en