Customer Reviews

Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age

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As a student of Stuart era British political and social history, I found this work a useful, serious introduction to Dutch economic and art history. Profusely illustrated, and quite readable (despite the intended academic audience), the book uses a detailed study of Dutch economics as a window into the world of Dutch art in the 17th century. A number of sources are translated here for the first time.

Of course, all art history interpretation is necessarily viewed through a personal prism, and Dr. Hochstrasser lets us know she is using a "Marxist" approach (which means that class consciousness is revealed by the art) with her frontispiece quote. For me the narrative made the still lives far more consequential and understandable - I've never been enamored of the pretty fruit type of picture before, but now understand why the subjects were important and why the owners of these works would be proud of their display. I came away with a deeper appreciation for the artwork of the period as well as the economic industry of the Dutch at this time, including the affliction of the slave trade, an odious counterpoint to the "golden age"

This affordable work would be welcomed by anyone with an interest in 17th century Europe, economic history, and Dutch art, of course!

I found this a lovely, thoughtful, and engrossing book. But before saying more, I want to respond to one of the disparaging reviews, because what irked that reviewer is precisely what I found so compelling and refreshing.

This reviewer whines about the social fabric Hochstrasser notices woven into 17th c Dutch painting. Instead of containing "art criticism," howls the reviewer, the reader gets "shock and horror that Dutch still lifes in the Seventeenth Century do not confess loudly the sins of the Dutch colonial expansion and the underlying exploitation of native peoples arising from such things as the spice trade." Apparently, discussing anything but brush strokes, lighting, the chemistry of paint and other technical aspects are totally out of bounds, and not art criticism. But one objects, these paintings were not created on Mars, but on planet Earth, in a particular time and place. That context influenced what painters saw and how they saw it. In a period that ushered in the first consumer culture, and in a country actively participating in and profiting from the Atlantic slave trade, is it really so outrageous and preposterous to notice that some of those realities influenced the visual art of the period? To me, and I suspect to many people, this would seem a rather obvious point. On the other hand, not paying attention to, but deliberately ignoring, those factors seems the more overt and gross political maneuver. And that is what the grumpy reviewer advocates. But so much for criticizing one huffy critique.

What's more important is Hochstrasser's book! I confess that before reading it, I found Dutch still life utterly boring. Who cares about a close up of some fruit in a bowl, fish on a platter, a goblet of wine, a slice of golden cheese or a mottled tulip? The book makes such scenes pulse with life--where did that lemon come from, after all? What were the conditions that brought the then exotic fruit from the Levant to the banquet table of some hitherto backwater Lowland tavern? The unpeeling rind's silvery patina is so suggestive...And yes, the fact that Gouda cheese and the herring trade were economic boons explains part of why they were so lovingly and mysteriously depicted by the period's painters. Without knowing the social background, one may marvel at some of the bravura painterly techniques, but one misses a lot--and what sponsored those innovative techniques was also a socio-economic affair...

To continue, what about that Arab or African in the background? It turns out that these paintings are deeply social. That's true for all painting, and all art, but in painting so relentlessly focused on objects, it's easy to forget or to ignore the world that spawned those commodities, and to miss what about them so fired the passions of viewers. I for one, learned a lot, and am grateful for such careful, nuanced and deeply informed scholarship.

I think other readers would be similarly intrigued. It's a coffee table book to marvel at, read, discuss, and indeed, to look at the pretty pictures.

This book is outstanding. Brilliant scholarship and deep observations about art and culture. We highly recommend it.

Charles Taliaferro and Jil Evans

One opens a book of art criticism purporting to be a review of Dutch still life in the Golden Age in the hope that such a book might actually contain art criticism. Ms. Berger Hochstratter foregoes such bourgeois expectations and instead offers us her shock and horror that Dutch still lifes in the Seventeenth Century do not confess loudly the sins of the Dutch colonial expansion and the underlying exploitation of native peoples arising from such things as the spice trade. Oh yes, there are some lovely pictures included.

One is well forewarned of the impending screed by the opening epigram from that most eminent of art historians, Karl Marx. One abandons all hope upon reading the first sentence of Ms. Berger Hochstrasser's preface, which reads, "As I first sat down to draft this preface on 8 September 2001, the International Congress Against Racism was meeting in Durban, South Africa." Indeed.

For the next 280 or so pages, we are made to suffer along with Ms. Berger Hochstrasser as she delves ever deeper into her revulsion at the inhumanities the rich inflict on the poor. Oh, by the way, all those moralizing interpretations that many art historians have read into Dutch art of the period--the vanitas--well, it seems that since none of them really explicitly condemned slavery, international trade, racism, sexism, whateverism--all those interpretations are null and void. Interesting.

I think you get the picture. This is an ideologically driven, sophomoric book. One can admire the author's idealism and her sincerity. Did I mention that the pictures are lovely? Skip this book; read Schama instead.

A great idea and a wonderful exposition. The pictures are also beautiful. Interesting also for non-art historians