Realism and Dutch Painting of the Golden Age: Fromentin and Hegel

Abstract

We first show that what characterized Dutch painting of the Golden Age, according to Fromentin, has nothing to do with the interpretation of Dutch painting by Hegel, but with his vision of those paintings as a transcript foreign to any moral, emotional, or intellectual consideration. We then show that the manner in which the Dutch painting of the 17th century represents war contributes to the construction of the identity and of the national conscience of the Dutch people through a propagandistic iconography. Lastly, we examine the status of moral sense in Dutch painting and we ask ourselves: what do these genre paintings tell us? What are they saying to us?