Public Faces and Private Identities in Seventeenth-Century Holland

Download or read book Public Faces and Private Identities in Seventeenth-Century Holland written by Ann Jensen Adams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the seventeenth century, Dutch portraits were actively commissioned by corporate groups and by individuals from a range of economic and social classes. Ann Jensen Adams examines four portrait genres - individuals, the family, history portraits, and civic guards. Adams argues that as individuals became unmoored from traditional sources of identity, such as familial lineage, birthplace, and social class, portraits helped them to find security in a self-aware subjectivity and the new social structures that made possible the 'economic miracle' that has come to be known as the Dutch Golden Age.