Virtue was ubiquitous in early modern Europe, not because everyone behaved well, but in the sense that interest in the subject was pervasive and intense. In a changing society, the widening aspiration to nobility was justified by claims to different kinds of virtue and the theory of virtue was the established way of re-assessing accepted human values. In Latin-based languages and humanist culture, certain materially based qualities attributed to the artwork itself eventually became identified as 'virtuosity', and the 'virtuoso' emerged in 17th century Europe as an elite figure with a particular interest in and appreciation of works of art and other objects of virtue. This volume brings together a set of essays on the relevance of virtue to Netherlandish art, dealing with virtue as a popular subject of visual representation and opening up fascinating links and comparisons between the special qualities accorded to revered works of art with the claims of elite artists and beholders to privileged standing. Themes addressed range from a discussion of ways in which Dutch artists and writers adapted courtly and humanist notions of martial virtue to validate still life to an analysis of political and painterly virtue in a mythological painting by Cornelisz. van Haarlem; from an examination of Goltzius's 'Tabula Cebetis' as a representation of artistic virtue to an exploration of the virtues of amateur landscape in the seventeenth century Netherlands. The volume also reconsiders the relationship between virtue and 'net' and 'rouw' painting, particularly with reference to the definition of sprezzatura in Castiglione's 'Book of the Courtier'. Or readers can compare Rubens' self-identification with virtue through humanist friendship with Jan Brueghel the Elder's reference, as a court painter, to the virtue and diligence of both his conduct and his art. Within a wide range of subject-matter and approaches, the authors share a commitment to establishing the place of virtue at the heart of Netherlandish art.

Presents a catalog that surveys the Dutch paintings found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Including contributions by historians of early modern European art, architecture, and literature, this book examines the transformative force of the vernacular over time and different regions, as well as the way the concept of the vernacular itself changes in the period.

This 2007 volume reveals how a first European identity was forged from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Cultural exchange played a central role in the elites' fashioning of self. The cultures they exchanged and often integrated with included palaces, dresses and jewellery but also gestures and dances.

This is a showcase of 11 major works by Frans Hals. The author also discusses the formation of Hals's style and considers his work in the context of broader European trends.

An investigation of the complex image-text relationships between frontispieces and illustrated title pages with the following texts in European books published between 1500 and 1800.

Power in the early modern age, as in the present age, is an important subject for debate. What is power? Who has it or should have it? What are the underlying reasons for this? And especially, how is this power exercised, legitimised, and accepted? The issue of power in Europe in the early modern age is all the more significant because the demarcation line between the worldly and the religious component of power is not always clearly drawn. The fact is that power can only exist in a structured context where there is a measure of approval and consensus on the way that power is constituted and exercised. It is actually about the relationship between those who have or crave power and those who find themselves in subordinate positions. Many means of persuasion are deployed in propaganda mechanisms to underscore the rightness or superiority of this relationship. The reverse side of this phenomenon is equally important: the extent to which criticism is being voiced and other opinions are being proclaimed is at least as relevant to an evaluation of the relationship between both groups, i.e. rulers and subordinates. In societies where pomp and circumstance bear the brunt of the persuasive process - since not everyone can read or write - visual elements are crucial: painting, sculpture, architecture, urban planning, court parties and ceremonies play a major role, as do all the products issued by the printing presses: tracts and pamphlets, illustrated or unillustrated. The essays in this volume deal not so much with theories of power but rather with the ways that rulers attempt to motivate the legitimation of their power and convey their own superiority, be it genuine or spurious. They focus on the persuasive production emanating from governments as well as on the reactions of other parties, which show both confirmative and contesting tendencies.