A Golden Age?

What exactly is the Dutch ‘Golden Age’? Art historians commonly use the term to qualify Dutch seventeenth-century society and, more specifically, Dutch art of the period. The notion itself has never been addressed. It is treated as self-evident, ignoring its normative dimension and history.

This project intends to rethink the notion of the ‘Golden Age’, by analyzing the manner in which it was defined, thought and described in the Seventeenth Century itself, by the Dutch as well as by foreigners who observed the country.

The project is conducted at the Université de Genève by professor Jan Blanc and his team, and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2017-2021).