The Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Reflections of the Dutch Golden Age: Etchings by Adriaen van Ostade, from the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery.
This exhibition will open on March 15, 2012, with a reception to be held from 5 to 7 pm. The Fine Arts Gallery is located in Cohen Memorial Hall, 1220 21st Avenue South, on the western edge of the Peabody College campus. Reflections of the Dutch Golden Age will remain on view through May 11, 2012.
Gallery hours are Monday – Friday 12-4 pm; Thursdays until 8 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday 1-5 p.m. This exhibit will be on view from March 15 through May 11, 2012.
All events are free and open to the public.
After Rembrandt, Adriaen van Ostade was the major Dutch etcher of the 17th century, a period often referred to as a Holland’s “Golden Age.” According to Arnold Houbraken’s biography of the artist from the period, Ostade studied concurrently with Adriaen Brouwer and Frans Hals in Haarlem. Hals influenced Ostade very little, whereas Brouwer, who was described as “known far and wide” as early as 1627, had a decisive influence on the evolution of Ostade’s portrayal of peasant life.
Many seventeenth-century Dutch artists developed specialties to help them gain an edge in the highly competitive contemporary art market. Some artists, for instance, focused exclusively on the representations of landscapes, still-lifes, or animal subjects. Ostade was one of a number of artists who specialized in genre themes – scenes drawn from daily life, rather than from religious, mythological, or literary sources. Ostade’s art (he was a noted painter as well) focuses primarily on peasant life, a topic explored in the previous century by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. A print after one of Bruegel’s paintings will be on view in Reflections of the Dutch Golden Age along side the work of Ostade.
Of the 50 known etchings by Ostade, Vanderbilt holds 34 as part of its collection of Dutch prints that numbers more than 100 works. Some of those included in this exhibition are multiple states of the same print, which help to illustrate the artist’s working methods. The etchings featured in Reflections of the Dutch Golden Age are also representative of Ostade’s range of subjects: images of rural tradesmen, parents with their children, village fairs, itinerant peddlers, and quack doctors. As a complement to the works of Ostade, Reflections of the Dutch Golden Age will also feature works by other well-known 17th-century Dutch artists, including etchings by Nicolaes Berchem, Ferdinand Bol, Cornelis Dusart, and Rembrandt van Rijn, allowing visitors to explore the vibrant artistic climate in which Ostade was working.
For more information, visit the gallery’s website or call (615) 322-0605.
Contact: Joseph Mella (615) 343-1704
Joseph.mella@vanderbilt.edu