This book presents the diverse themes and meanings of the school of painting that is so inadequately described as "genre," and, through works by various masters, this potentionally vague style achieves a much stronger definition.

Rowdy peasants, enraptured couples, the village school,soldiers, fashionable ladies writing letters-human beings seeking distraction and above all their fortune in love. The Dutch painters of the seventeenth century chose their motifs from all facets of the world around them, and their works give us insight into how their contemporaries lived. They were not reporters, however, but artists, rendering their subjects in inimitable manner. On these pages we encounter the well-known masters-Jan Steen, Gerrit Dou, Johannes Vermeer,and others--while also discovering the surprising qualities of less familiar painters such as Willem Duyster and Frans van Mieris.

  This volume provides an overview of the most important of these masters of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Still capable of holding us spellbound today, the exuberant, erotic,elegant, and enigmatic scenes were brought together from a large number of museums in Europe and the United States.They are illustrated here in color and accompanied by detailed commentaries. The introductory essays inquire into frequent-ly discussed possible interpretations of the paintings. And by taking a comparative and critical look at objects of everyday use which have survived from that period, they also examine the extent to which these artworks can actually be viewed as mirrors of past reality.

Jeroen Gihaij

Painters of Daily Life: An Introduction to the Exhibition

Peter Hecht

There's No Problem Enjoying It, But the Meaning Is Tricky

Alexandra Gaba-van Dongen

Between Fantasy and Reality: Utensils in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art

Catalogue

Willem Buytewech 1591(?)-1624

Dirck Hals 159I-1656

Willem Duyster 1599-1635

Pieter Codde 1599/1600-1678

Symon Kick 1603-1652

Jacob Duck 1596/1600-1667

Adriaen Brouwer 1605/16o6-1638

Hendrick Sorgh 1609/1611-1670

Jan Miense Molenaer ca. 1610-1668

Adriaen van Ostade i6io-i685

Gerrit Dou 1613-1675

Ludolf de Jongh 1616-1679

Gerard ter Borch 1617/1618-1681

Quiringh van B rekelenkam ca. 1622-ca. 1669

Jan Steen 1626-1679

Gabriel Metsu 1629-1667

Pieter de Hooch 1629-1684

Cornelis Bega 1631/1632-1664

Johannes Vermeer 1632-1675

Jacob Ochterveh 1634-1682

Eglon van der Neer 1635/1636-1703

Frans van Mieris 1635(?)-1618

Bibliography