Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
The Golden Age of Slavery
CAROLINE FOWLER explains how the slave trade helped establish the ‘golden age’ of Dutch painting and where to find its hidden traces
golden age of slavery
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Slavery and the invention of Dutch Art
Caroline Fowler, Duke University Press, £28.24
THE earliest paintings that would be called Dutch were predominantly religious. They were made for Christian devotion. In the 1500s, major divisions in the church led to a fragmentation of Christianity called the Reformation.
In this new religious climate, artists began to create new types of paintings, studying the world around them. They included landscapes, seascapes, still lives, and interior scenes of their homes. Instead of working for the church, many painters began to work within an art market. There was a rising middle class that could afford to buy paintings.
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