Emotional intensity is a hallmark of European art in the Baroque era, and Dutch and Flemish art are no exception. NKJ volume 60 is the first collection of essays to examine this fascinating aspect of visual culture in the early modern Netherlands. Case studies explore both the representation of the passions in paintings and prints of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the responses of contemporary viewers to works ranging from the vivid tronies (physiognomic studies) of Rembrandt to the dramatic hunting scenes of Peter Paul Rubens. In addition, several essays examine theoretical...

Cultural exchange, the dynamic give and take between two or more cultures, has become a distinguishing feature of modern Europe. This was already an important feature to the elites of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and it played a central role in their fashioning of self. The cultures these elites exchanged and often integrated with their own were both material and immaterial; they included palaces, city-dwellings, paintings, sculptures, ceramics, dresses and jewellery, but also gestures, ways of sitting, standing and walking, and dances. In this innovative and...

Dutch society has undergone radical changes in recent years, due to complex political, social and ethnic developments. Reframing Dutch Culture examines issues of nationality, ethnicity, culture and identity in The Netherlands from an ethnological perspective, linking past traditions and notions of identity with more recent transformations. Weaving in a range of fascinating case studies, contributors provide an interdisciplinary analysis of these changes. The developments are related to wider European and global transformation processes, highlighting the contribution of Dutch ethnology to the...