The XVII century is an age of opposites. Democracy is contrasted with
absolutism; the newly won Dutch Republic with the monarchies of Spain and
France. Christendom is divided between the antagonistic sects of
Catholicism and Protestantism. The Counter-Reformation, at first
mistrustful of the artist, now makes use of art to further the Catholic
reaction. But religious art itself, exclusively Catholic, is animated by
varying emotions which find expression, on the one hand, in the
passionate, morbid fervor of Ribera (1588-1656); on the other, in the
easy-going rhetoric and corpulent healthiness of Rubens (1577-1640). In
secular art we find equally striking contrasts; the pendulum swings from
the aristocratic refinement of Van Dyck (1599-1641) to the vulgarity of
Brouwer (1606-1638). It seems incredible that two such great artists as
Rembrandt (1607-1669) and Velasquez (1599-1660) should have been
contemporaries: Velasquez, reserved, proud, the embodiment of Spanish
courtliness; Rembrandt, emotional, democratic, understanding and
sympathizing with all mankind. But the contrast is no greater than
between the popular art that flourished in the Netherlands under a free
people, and the monarchical art, with its academies, court painters,
sculptors, architects, tapestry weavers and cabinet makers, that revolved
around the awesome person of le grand monarque, Louis XIV. Architecture,
sculpture and the minor arts display more uniformity of style than the
paintings of the period. Dependent largely upon the Church or upon an
opulent aristocracy for patronage, they reflect the taste for
grandiloquence, ostentation and splendid show which characterized, in this
century, ecclesiastic and noble alike. The classic orders tower and
writhe on church facade and palace walls. Within, where all is
resplendent with gold and rich colors, magnificence pays its lavish homage
to deity or to royalty in equal measure.
[Henry Hyde, Lord Clarendon. Sir Peter Lely, 1618-1680]