Netherlands: Rembrandt's Amsterdam in the Dutch Golden Age

May 31 - June 20, 2009

HONR 288J (HA CORE)

In 1631, a twenty-five year-old Rembrandt, brimming with confidence, moved to Amsterdam and found in that city a success that equaled his ambition. Rembrandt’s fame, his genius, are impossible to imagine without the context of this city, through which the world’s commerce and goods poured in the seventeenth century and where new ideas found expression.

This course will explore the many connections between Rembrandt and Amsterdam, the greatest artist during that city’s - and the Dutch Republic’s - greatest age. From the land in and around Amsterdam to its varied population, Rembrandt was drawn to all facets of and spared no energy chronicling and ultimately eternalizing, his adopted city. Examining Amsterdam through the lens of Rembrandt’s engagement with the city, in both his art and his personal life, offers a unique understanding of what was perhaps the most vital city in seventeenth-century Europe. Students in this course will emerge with an ability to analyze the complex relationships that exist between a society’s historical situation and its culture, particularly that of one truly gifted individual.

A course of this nature offers a rare opportunity: to plumb the symbiotic connections between Rembrandt and Amsterdam in the very place of their forging. Through an exploration of richly nuanced “portraits” of both Rembrandt and Amsterdam in museums (Rijksmuseum, Mauristhuis, Amsterdams Historisches Museum, and others), churches and places in and around the city, participants will build knowledge, enhancing their understanding of the importance of both city and man to the development of thought, practice and art in Western civilization. In addition, excursions to the Dutch cities and towns of Delft, The Hague, and Leiden, as well as a weekend foray to Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges, will provide an expanded context for understanding the true significance of Rembrandt’s manifold accomplishments and Amsterdam’s rise as an economic and cultural entrepot of Europe.

While in Amsterdam students will stay at the Acro Hotel, which is ideally situated within the city.