Similar To The Dutch Genre Paintings example essay topic

During this last semester I enjoyed learning about the Dutch and their ideas within their artworks. The best part of the Dutch artwork is the genre paintings. These paintings are like a story or a picture book that show's the lifestyle of the people during that period. These paintings depicts their environment, entertainment, lifestyle, cloths, work, and society; in other words the everyday life style. The two paintings which I have chosen are Dutch paintings from the 17th century. These two paintings are also genre paintings which depicts their lifestyle.

I wanted to compare the two Dutch genre paintings and contrast the style (color, light, style) of the two painters. Both paintings were Dutch genre paintings of the 17th century, Joost-Cornelisz Droochsloot's Village Merrymaking was done in oil on wood panel that dated back in 1586-1674 and Adriaen Van de Velde's Pastoral Landscape was done in oil on canvas dated back around 1660-1670. Despite the active tradition of Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century, the realistic characteristics of art from this period can be reconciled with its possible meanings. These artists created some of the most beautiful and luminous paintings of the Dutch Genre Period, the cultural and economic flourishing of the Dutch from the time. Paintings epitomizes the best elements of European baroque art, combining Italian theatricality and innovative lighting effects with Dutch sensitivity to nature. These splendid works of art reveal a warm, light-filled art that celebrates the senses from the setting of the paintings.

The many delightful secular scenes as well as the dramatic paintings on traditional themes that are executed with a remarkable vivacity and surface beauty characteristic period. These, Dutch artists turned a portraitist's eye onto the societ around them, scrutinizing the natural, architectural, and social topography of the Dutch society. At the expense of traditional religious and historical subjects, entirely new categories of painting gained popularity, including landscape, cityscape, architectural views, and genre scenes that depicted every level of society. The characteristics of individual citizens, the activities of their daily lives, and their urban natural environment were catalogued in painted images. Apparently more realistic, this scene is nevertheless also a concoction of the artist's imagination. The tradition of paintings scenes of everyday life began as a social entertainment or the depiction of the people's everyday life.

These 17th century genre painting developed into social realism, with subjects often taken from the lives of ordinary citizens. As I look upon these two Dutch paintings my eyes focuses on the subject of each painting. Usually the subject is the depiction of everyone and everything. The subject is everything or in other words what the people are doing in the scene, since it is a genre painting.

In Joost-Cornelisz Droochsloot's painting, Village Merrymaking, the subject is basically the whole village. The village of merchants, spokesmen, shops, bars, and people playing makes it seem to be a busy place to be. Lots of people talking and kids yelling. Looking at the painting our sense gets involved with the village.

As you look at the painting your eyes jump from here to there due to the commotion of the people. There isn t a main subject, but your eyes do follow a certain pattern. Looking at the painting for a moment I noticed there are certain red area's on the painting. These certain red area's are on the people in every group.

I believe that this red is intentionally set to make you move to one group to another. It doesn t cause your eyes to say in one spot, but make's you look upon everything. In the painting there is a foreground, middle-ground, and background. As you look in the foreground you can see a couple close together holding each other, a man on the ground, and a family chasing after a dog. Looking close to this foreground, the detail of the faces and clothes are superb.

You can see the expression of their faces in great detail. As you start moving back to the middle-ground the detail of the painting is still controlled. The detail is so direct, you can see what of the merchants are selling in his hand and the scroll in the spokespersons hands. The commotion of the merchants, spokesperson, and salesmen cause your sense of hearing come in. It makes you just want to listen to want they have to share and sell. Moving back to the background the detail seems to get lighter but still good enough to make out things.

You can still see in the background the groups of people still gathering around the merchants. Even the sense of the blowing flag causes us to feel the wind and makes us wonder what the weather is like. The one point perspective cause our eyes to move from the foreground back to the left middle of the painting. Our eyes seem to focus on everything and everyone because of this perspective.

The wide angle view also makes us see the activities, commotion, and movement of the people in the village. Droochsloot uses brown, reds, and yellows in the painting. The darker and red values of the painting cause us to think it's dusk. Not only this but the hint of pink in the sky causes us to think this. The low key colors and geometric shapes are similar to Jan Vermeer paintings. In the next painting By Adriaen Van De Velde he used a different color scheme from Droochsloot.

Velde uses more of a darker green, blue's, and yellow. Looking at the painting, also a genre painting, there isn t much action going on. the animals are playing, some are sleeping, and the boy petting the dog. Looks as if the boy is resting from a walk with the animals. His back rest against a tree in what looks like a woody area of the pastor. Pastoral Landscape, seems like a peaceful painting rather than Village Merrymaking.

In this painting your sense also plays a part, you can hear the animals and the stillness of nature. The foreground I believe is to the most dominant because of the whiteness of the cow. Not only because of the white in the cow jumps out more due to the dark background but, the size of the cow. The cow seems to be larger than any of the other figures in the painting. Looking close at the cow, the cow seems to be like back at you with it's dark eyes. The dark mixture of green are used, making it seem to be late in the day.

But, it is probably midday because of the opening to the upper right of the painting. The yellow and blue sky gives this sense and tells us it's not late. Looking at the painting the darkness dominates the painting and with that bright opening our eyes what to escape to that. Detail in this painting is as great as the last one. A close look, the texture of the trees and fur are represented. It makes us what to just reach out and touch the softness of the animals and the tree's.

The colors of both paintings are different due to the time of day and what you want the viewer to feel. Droochsloot uses reds to cause excitement within the painting. He wants us to feel the action and excitement in the village. In the other hand Velde used darker colors to tone down the mood and soften the setting. The use of the colors give a peaceful setting and not so chaotic scene. The lighting of the two paints seem similar due to the color used to make the light.

In both paintings the light source seem to be coming from the left side and shine down to the subject (s). In Velde's painting it's hard to see the light source because of the trees but if u look close enough and look at the yellow highlights u can make out the source. The source comes from the left and shining through the trees, which causes it to highlight. These two paintings are similar to the Dutch genre paintings we have studied in the class. Droochsloot has a similar style to Vermeer, with the use of colors and geometric shapes.

Looking at Vermeer's View of Deft, you can notice the great detail on the buildings and his use of color. Droochsloot also use great detail in his painting and the use of colors to state the time of day. The classes study has a similar theme or thought put into these lovely paintings. The thought is of culture and lifestyle of the Dutch people. Paintings from class and paintings from museums has showed the similarities among artist of this time. These paintings teaches us the culture, society, and a look into a persons life.

The study of the other genre painters give's us a better sense to the genre paintings from the Mint.