Artsmarts
The secret life in Dutch Golden Age paintings: the real world behind the looking glass
By the end of the 19th century, the masterpieces by the majority of Dutch Golden Age painters were destined to gather dust in closets or to be thrown to fire. After all, what can be more boring than contemplation of the aristocrats playing music, drunken peasants, brooding young men and women in the quiet interior rooms, harsh unpopulated landscapes with all those mills and cows, or bunches of…