When researching my Alexander Baxby Mystery Naming the Dead, I learnt how art was popular amongst Amsterdam’s growing middle class. It provides us with a window into their lives.
During the early 1600s, Amsterdam was the most prosperous
city in northern Europe. Increasingly wealthy burghers and guildsmen bought elegant
brick canal houses, which gradually replaced older wooden ones, and
commissioned paintings to adorn their walls. No longer constrained by the
tastes of the nobility, the new Dutch style depicted their families, interior
design and fashion choices, similar to the way people post Instagram images
today.
Amsterdam attracted artists due to the burgeoning market. Rembrandt moved there, where he produced his iconic Night Watch. This can be seen in the city’s Rijkmuseum, along with many other examples of Dutch Masters’ work. Many paintings give wider insights into Dutch agriculture, industry, commerce and political life too.
You can read more
in this Washington National Gallery article:
National Gallery of Art - Painting in the
Dutch Golden Age - A Profile of the Seventeenth Century
Personally, I find the Dutch Masters' paintings help me relate to ordinary people in the seventeenth century. The English Puritans, who shared a similar Reformed faith at that time, are often portrayed as drab and miserable, but their Dutch counterparts appear more human, with similar preoccupations to ourselves.
Naming in Blood (Baxby Mystery #2) is available on Kindle Unlimited and to buy at UK Link and US Link