The Golden Age of Dutch Art Roma

For the first time in Rome, an exhibition of Johannes Vermeer , the greatest exponent of Dutch painting of the seventeenth century. The exhibition at the Quirinal Stables includes, in fact, a valuable selection of works by Johannes Vermeer - rare and distributed in museums around the world, neither in Italy - and about fifty works of Dutch artists of his contemporaries. The visitor can, therefore, not only familiar with this artistic genius from life still shrouded in mystery, starting with his birth date is still unknown, but also understand how the work of the master of Delft has been compared with other artists active in his native city and in the nearby towns of cultural ferment, such as Amsterdam, Haarlem and Leiden.

In addition to the artist's masterpieces , famous and enchanting as the road today in Amsterdam, the exhibition will feature works by Carel Fabritius , one of the most famous artists of the time, died in the explosion of the powder magazine in 1654 that destroyed great part of the city of Delft , Pieter de Hooch and Emmanuel de Witte , along with celebrated artists at the time but today we have less well-known such as Gerard ter Borch , Gerrit Dou , Nicolaes Maes , Gabriel Metsu , Frans van Mieris , Jacob Ochtervelt and Jan Steen and many other masters refined and surprising . The specific character of the paintings of Vermeer and his contemporaries reflects the culture of middle-class Holland of the seventeenth century. The subject’s housewares and the strong sense of realism characteristic of their style fascinated by private collectors of the time, mostly merchants, bakers, brewers, exposing the paintings in their homes always asking for new subjects. In the same period in Italy, by contrast, large institutional commissions, such as the Church and the princely courts, required forms of public art and large format: very different, so the painting intimate and nuanced Vermeer which dealt mostly themes focused on the private sector. The family , gestures and moments of everyday life , reading and writing (especially the private correspondence ) , courtship , the music and the study of science , and then the views of the city, the glimpses of a world silent and industrious , light of irony and thoughtful tenderness. These themes vermeeriani .

In recent years the Dutch art has been widely and universally studied and several exhibitions have been dedicated to the exhibition in England, Holland , Germany, Japan, Spain and the United States, all memorable but distant in time and space. Although connoisseurs and lovers of art in Italy are now fully aware of the virtues and the variety of Dutch painting than they were the previous generations, there was still a really comprehensive review of that happy period of art that was the seventeenth century, both for the extreme difficulty in the works available find rare and precious, very jealously preserved by a few museums and refined collectors, both because of their fragility. Today, the Quirinal Stables are proud to offer this exhibition and its catalog that will help you to understand and know the Dutch painting and this big, absolute and undisputed master.