Painting in the Early Dutch Republic

When the Thirty Years' War came to a close and the Treaty of Westphalia established both the principle of religious toleration and the establishment of the new Dutch Republic, painting in Northern Europe was revitalized with a new sense of purpose and possibility. Northern conventions in painting with their roots in the Flemish Renaissance- the landscape, the still-life, and the portrait- all underwent significant transformations which reflected the new climate of economic prosperity and the burgeoning national pride in the land's productivity and the Protestant peoples' industry. Artists like Hals, Vermeer, and Rembrandt brought sweeping changes to their works which forever changed the possibilities of what art could be and the forms which it could take, laying the foundations in many senses for how art is encountered in modern settings. Most of these we might take for granted; for example, next time you pose for a group photo, you have the early Dutch group portrait painters to thank for the development of this convention in imaging.