Jessica Fahy Art Historian

(In-Person, Online and Replay)

This ten-week course will explore the first half of the Dutch Golden Age (c. 1590–1640) which was defined by a surge of national pride, rapid economic expansion, and radical artistic innovation following the birth of the independent, Protestant Dutch Republic. With the sudden loss of traditional Catholic Church and royal court patronage, artists pivoted to a fiercely competitive open market, creating highly specialized consumer artwork for a rising middle class of merchants and civic guards. This foundational era rejected idealized Renaissance beauty in favour of a gritty, tactile realism and secular subject matter, brought to life through the dramatic chiaroscuro of Utrecht's Caravaggisti, the loose, spontaneous brushwork of Frans Hals and Judith Leyster, and the theatrical, monumental early masterpieces of Rembrandt van Rijn and many more fascinating artists.

You can attend in-person, live online or catch up with the recordings which will remain available for two months after the end of the course.