The Netherlands in Rembrandt’s Time
Stephen Usherwood shows how Rembrandt’s genius gives a vivid impression of 17th-century Holland.
‘This deepest heart Rembrandt was a true son I of his country and his people; you grasp the X Netherlands through Rembrandt and Rembrandt through the Netherlands.’
So wrote the Dutch historian J. H. Huizinga in 1941, and this year, 1969, being the tercentenary of Rembrandt’s death, is a good time to re-appraise the achievements of the Dutch in the first half of the seventeenth century.
For Rembrandt was born in 1606, and in his life-time the young Dutch Republic became a world power, with an army and navy capable of keeping the homeland free of invaders and making it a strong refuge for a host of gifted exiles from less happy lands.
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