Painters of the Dutch Golden Age, 1588 to 1672 Quiz

Answer: Frans Hals

Frans Hals (c. 1582-1666) lived and worked in Harlem. He was a sought-after painter of individual, married couple, family and group portraits, and he also painted what were called "tronies" - pictures of people with exaggerated or characteristic facial expressions such as old people. His style of painting is characterised by loose brushwork capturing the sitter's personality.

His most famous picture, "Laughing Cavalier" (1624 - now in the Wallace Collection in London - and hence the clue), is a fine example of his style: it looks as though the sitter's gorgeous silk costume would have taken ages to paint, but if you look more closely you can see that it's painted with long, quick brush strokes. Some of his popular "tronies" are "The Lute Player" (1624 - now in the Louvre in Paris) and "Malle Babbe" (1635 - now in the Gemäldegalerie, in Berlin). And there's a lovely "couple" painting in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam "Married Couple in a Garden".

The Hals Museum in Harlem is well worth a visit - it's only a few minutes from Amsterdam by train, the town itself is lovely and the Museum is fascinating. It's particularly worth looking at the group pictures of the men and women regents who ran the men and women's almshouse - less sympathetic-looking groups of people would be hard to find!

Answer: Saenredam

Pieter Janszoon Saenredam (1597-1665) was known for his distinctive paintings of whitewashed church interiors. Like Hals, he lived and worked in Harlem, but he worked in a very different way: he'd take meticulous measurements of the interior he wished to paint and then sketch it using pencil, pen and chalk, using scientific linear perspective. After this he'd apply a few washes and then put the sketch away to be painted up in due course.

The churches, of course, are all devoid of any ornamentation, having been stripped down to basics by the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation. The paintings thus become architectural documents as well as works of art.

One of his paintings, "Interior of the Buurkerk, Utrecht" (now in the National Gallery in London) is well worth looking at. The best collections, however, are in the Netherlands, especially in Utrecht.

Answer: van Ruisdael

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (1629-1682) is generally considered the preeminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, from 1646 onwards. Working in Haarlem and then Amsterdam, he produced many fine paintings of the Dutch countryside, adding seascapes and cityscapes to his repertoire later in his career. He also painted over 150 views of Norwegian waterfalls, although curiously there's no record of him ever going to Norway. Some of his pictures are well over 60% sky.

His work was very popular, attracting prices double that of many other artists' work; a recent study in which Dutch painters were ranked based on price found that Ruisdael was ranked in seventh place (Rembrandt ranked first). Ruisdael shaped landscape painting for many years afterwards, influencing the English Romantics, the Barbizon school in France and the Hudson River School in the US. The works of Gainsborough, Turner, and Constable also show his influence.

Answer: Fabritius

Carel Fabritius (1637-1673) was a pupil of Rembrandt, but one who developed his own particular style rather then just blindly following the master. He lived and worked in Delft, probably influencing Vermeer and de Hooch. One of his pictures, "A View of Delft, with a Musical Instrument Seller's Stall" (1652 - now in the National Gallery in London), was painted with very unusual perspective effects, typical of his experimentation. Perhaps his most famous painting is "The Goldfinch" (1654 - now in the Mauritshuis in The Hague - and hence the clue), which is a wonderful gem of realism and trompe-l'oeil.

Sadly Fabritius was killed in the explosion of the Delft gunpowder magazine in October 1654, which destroyed a quarter of the city including his studio and many of his paintings; only about a dozen have survived. In fact, it's possible that "The Goldfinch" was recovered from the ruins after the disaster.

Answer: Hobbema

Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709) was a pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael, specialising in scenes of woods and flat landscapes. He produced most of his work in his twenties; by the age of 50 he'd stopped painting completely. It's also possible that his name has been removed from some of his paintings so that they could be passed off as being by van Ruisdael and would therefore fetch higher prices.

His most famous work, "The Avenue at Middelharnis" (1689 - now in the National Gallery in London, and hence the clue) differs completely from his previous work. It's an accurate depiction of a specific spot, and it's dominated by straight lines: the lines of trees and of the ditches on both sides of the straight road. It's a beautiful, contemplative work.

Answer: Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) lived and worked in Delft for all his life, producing a small number of paintings of which 34 survive. Little is known of his life, except that he died in poverty. For many years his work was neglected until he was rediscovered in the mid-18th century, and now his paintings are considered to be among the world's greatest masterpieces. They're mainly depictions of quiet domestic scenes with people doing everyday things - making lace, reading letters, pouring milk - but they are all endowed with the most beautiful light and tranquility.

He painted two cityscapes: "View of Delft" (1660 - now in the Mauritshuis in the The Hague) and "The Little Street" (1658 - now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam). The former is a stunning view of his home town - if you look at it closely you can see that the paint depicting the beach by the river has sand mixed into it.

Of course his most famous work is "Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665 - now in the Mauritshuis in the The Hague and hence the clue). It's quiet but at the same time very sensual. From the sublime to the ridiculous - the last time I was at the Mauritshuis I bought a tourist memento, a rubber duck equipped with the turban and earring from the painting - the "Duck with a Pearl Earring".

Vermeer has been my favourite artist for over 50 years, and I've travelled to many places to see his work: Paris, the Netherlands, New York, Berlin and so on. The best trip ever was going to the exhibition of his work at The Hague in 1996 - a marvellous day.

Answer: Avercamp

Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634) specialized in painting the Netherlands in winter, especially scenes of people skating on frozen lakes, rivers and canals - I'm sure it's no coincidence that he was born and raised during what's now known as the "Little Ice Age". Stylistically his paintings are colorful and lively, and you can see many similarities of his work with that of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He introduces aerial perspective into his work by having bright, rich foreground colours with paler shades in the distance.

Deaf and mute, he produced about 100 paintings in his career, many of which can be seen in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Mauritshuis in The Hague. His paintings are often seen reproduced as Christmas cards, particularly "A Winter Scene with Skaters near a Castle" (1609 - now in the National Gallery in London) and "Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters" (1608 - now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam).

Answer: Dou

Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) from Leiden was a pupil of Rembrandt and a member of the Leiden Fijnschilders who were known for creating realist scenes in small, meticulously executed works. He also painted numerous portraits, but his approach was so painstaking and time-consuming that he attracted fewer and fewer commissions in later life.

Many of his pictures have trompe-l'oeil effects, looking as though the scene is being seen through a window with the subject leaning on the window sill and looking out. This can be seen especially in some of his self-portraits, for example "Self-Portrait" (1665 - now in the Louvre in Paris).

As with Vermeer, Dou's reputation has fallen and risen. In his lifetime his paintings were greatly in demand and were being sold for huge prices. His popularity remained high until the mid-19th century but then slumped; it wasn't until the 1970s that his reputation recovered. Two of his most famed paintings, are "The Dropsical Woman" (1663), and "The Dutch Housewife" (1650), both in the Louvre in Paris.

Answer: Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, is generally thought of as one of the greatest painters in the history of art. He produced over 300 paintings in his career, and unlike other Dutch artists of the time his output varied greatly in style and subject matter. Notably, however, nearly a third of his known paintings are self-portraits, showing him from youth to old age.

His most famous painting is probably "The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq", also known as "The Night Watch" (1642 - now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - and hence the clue). It's a large painting - 12 feet by 14 feet - and it would have been even larger had chunks of it not been cut off so that it would fit on the wall where it was going to hang. And of course it wasn't until it was properly cleaned that people realised that it didn't depict a night scene at all, just the men of the Watch stepping out from a shady courtyard into daylight.

Having said all that - I still actually prefer Vermeer's work!

Answer: de Hooch

Pieter de Hooch (1629 - after 1683) lived and worked in Delft and was a contemporary of Vermeer - some of de Hooch's work work is very similar to that of Vermeer, especially "Interior with a Woman Weighing Gold Coin" (1662 - now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin) which closely resembles Vermeer's "Woman Holding a Balance" (1662 - now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC).

Much of de Hooch's early work was of the "Merry Company" genre - depictions of people gathered in taverns and having a good time. However, in the late 1650s he turned his attention to cityscapes, featuring gardens, squares and courtyards. The prime example of this is "The Courtyard of a House in Delft" (1658 - now in the National Gallery in London).

Sadly, de Hooch's wife died at the age of 38 in 1667, leaving him with a young family, and subsequently the quality of his work declined. The pictures painted after this date are described as being harsh in colour, lifeless, cumbersome and poor in their structural composition.