DUTCH TREAT:
Art & Culture in the Golden Age

To extend the North Carolina celebration of Dutch 17^th century master Rembrandt into the New Year, the spring lecture series will explore the work of other artists of the Golden Age. The economic prosperity and urban culture that allowed the genius of Rembrandt to flourish in Amsterdam also encouraged talented artists such as Frans Hals, Judith Leyster, Jan Steen, and Johannes Vermeer in the cities of Haarlem and Delft. Wealthy merchants and manufacturers developed a taste for richly diverse art works, including portraits, genre scenes of everyday life, landscapes, and still lifes, to display in their homes. A network of art dealers sprang up to cater to this new class of art patrons. The art market as we know it today, with its open circulation of fine arts through galleries, auctions, and estate sales, was born during the Dutch Golden Age.

Lecture #1 – Thu., March 15, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. by Molly Gwinn, Ph.D.

REMBRANDT’S CONTEMPORARIES:
Hals, Steen, & Vermeer

The first lecture of the series will explore the work of Rembrandt’s contemporaries who shared his inclination for certain subjects, but tell us more about the Dutch temperament and values than the master. If Rembrandt is best known for portraits that allow us to glimpse the uniqueness of an individual, other artists became accomplished at their own specialties. Frans Hals portrayed solid middle class burghers with a spontaneity that brings them to life, despite the Calvinist sobriety of their dark costumes. JohannesVermeer’s mostly female subjects inhabit domestic spaces, which speak volumes about the décor and lifestyle within the neat, quietly opulent interiors favored by the Dutch. And Jan Steen, the virtuoso of tavern scenes and kitchen pieces, places us in the midst of noisy, smoky mayhem, where everyone is merry. But if we examine the chaos more closely, we find that the artist’s true subject is not festivity, but a morality tale about virtuous behavior.

Lecture #2 – Thu., April 12, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. by Denise Drum Baker

JUDITH LEYSTER:
Trail Blazer for Women Artists in the 17^th Century

Most women have heard of the Dutch master painters of 17^th century, either from an art class or the handy storage boxes made by a cigar firm. Few people know that one of those master painters was a woman:  Judith Leyster. Leyster was considered the leading female artist of her time by her contemporaries. By 1628 she was highly praised in print and had already achieved certain fame. We know from her paintings that by 1629 she had her own style and was able to take credit for her paintings even before she officially became a master painter, which was quite unique. In later years her work was often attributed to Frans Hals until a Louvre discovery in 1898 suggested she was the true painter of her own artwork.

In 1633 at the age of 23, Leyster became the first woman to be accepted into the St. Luke’s Guild of Haarlem, the good-old-boys network of about 30 master painters who cornered the local art market. Consequently, Leyster was legally permitted to establish her own workshop with assistants, sign and sell her own paintings, and instruct paying (male) students. “Honest” women in the Netherlands at that time traditionally worked at spinning, sewing, housekeeping, or helping in the businesses of their husbands or fathers. For a young unmarried daughter of a weaver-turned-brewer to pursue her own career in the male bastion of professional painters was exceptional.

Lecture #3 – Thu., May 10, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. by Molly Gwinn, Ph.D.

LANDSCAPE PAINTING & ITS LEGACY:
van Ruisdael, van Gogh, & Mondrian

Finally, the Dutch were avid collectors of landscape paintings, perhaps because of their unique relationship to their terrain.  In the landscapes of artists like Jacob van Ruisdael, fields, sand dunes, and sea are overwhelmed by the sky—a perspective that would be revived in the late 19^th century by two modern Dutch painters, Vincent van Gogh and Piet Mondrian.  While their art departed from the careful realism of their 17^th century forerunners, they showed the same attachment to the orderly landscape of their homeland in their symbolic and abstract images.

MEET OUR LECTURERS:
Dr. Molly Gwinn is an art historian who has presented the spring lecture series in the past and has offered courses at the Center for Creative Retirement at Sandhills Community College.  She earned her doctorate from Rutgers University and has taught art history at Rutgers, the School of Continuing and Professional Studies at New York University, and the Dallas Museum of Art.  She is the daughter of Barbara Sutherland, a well-known Southern Pines artist and long-time resident of Penick Village.

Denise Drum Baker is an artist and professor of visual arts at Sandhills Community College. She earned her Master’s from Appalachian State University.  Her list of awards and honors includes Faculty Exchange from The Newry Institute in Northern Ireland; Fulbright Teacher Exchange Scholarship Nominee; and a Distance Learning Instructor for the NC Museum of Art.  She most recently completed work on Crossing the Atlantic – an exchange project with Irish colleagues demonstrating the lost art of letter-writing.

COST:  $10 for ACMC & Weymouth members / $15 for Nonmembers

The Lectures will be presented at Weymouth Center (555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines).
Space is limited.  Please register now with full payment at the Arts Council’s offices at Campbell House (482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines) or by calling 910-692-ARTS (2787).