Culture of the Netherlands

Some symbols and icons of Dutch culture.

Dutch culture, or the culture of the Netherlands, is diverse, reflecting regional differences as well as the foreign influences thanks to the merchant and exploring spirit of the Dutch and the influx of immigrants. The Netherlands and Dutch people have played an important role for centuries as a culturally liberal and tolerant centre, with the Dutch Golden Age regarded as the zenith.

Language

Main articles: Languages of the Netherlands and Dutch dialects

A map illustrating the area in which Dutch is spoken.

The official language of the Netherlands is Dutch, spoken by almost all people in the Netherlands. Dutch is also spoken and official in Aruba, Brussels, Curaçao, Flanders, Sint Maarten and Suriname. It is a West Germanic, Low Franconian language that originated in the Early Middle Ages (c. 470) and was standardized in the 16th century. West Frisian is also a recognized language and it is used by the government in the province of Friesland. Several dialects of Low Saxon (Nedersaksisch in Dutch) are spoken in much of the north and east and are recognized by the Netherlands as regional languages according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Another Dutch dialect granted the status of regional language is Limburgish, which is spoken in the south-eastern province of Limburg. However, both Dutch Low Saxon and Limburgish spread across the Dutch-German border and belong to a common Dutch-Low German dialect continuum.

There is a tradition of learning foreign languages in the Netherlands: about 89% of the total population have good knowledge of English, 70% of German, 29% of French and 5% of Spanish.

Religion

Main article: Religion in the Netherlands

Calvinism has been known at times for its simple, unadorned churches and lifestyles, as depicted in this painting by Emmanuel de Witte c.1660

The rebellious Netherlands that had united in the Union of Utrecht (1579) declared their independence from Spain in 1581, during the Eighty Years' War; Spain finally accepted this in 1648. The Dutch revolt was partially religiously motivated: during the Reformation many of the Dutch had adopted Lutheran, Anabaptist, Calvinist or Mennonite forms of Protestantism. These religious movements were suppressed by the Spanish, who supported the Counter Reformation. After independence the Netherlands adopted Calvinism as a quasi state religion (although never formally), but practiced a degree of religious tolerance towards non-Calvinists.

Today, the Netherlands is one of the most secular countries in Europe. An estimated 49.6% of the population (2007) call themselves non-religious. The remaining are 27% Roman Catholic, 15.7% Protestant and 5.3% Muslim (data CBS 2005, 2007). In former ages, Protestantism used to be the largest religion in the Netherlands, but there has always been a high percentage of Roman Catholics, who were strongly predominating in the southern provinces, but also considerably present in the northern ones. However, over the past century the older Protestant churches have been in decline. Islam has begun to gain a foothold and mosques are being built. The Netherlands is also home to a significant Hindu minority, mostly made up of migrants who came from former colony Suriname after its independence. There is also a small group of Jews (40,000) living in the Netherlands, most of them are settled in Amsterdam.

Art and media

Art

Main article: Dutch art

Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft (Mauritshuis, The Hague) 1660-1661

Dutch Golden Age painting was among the most acclaimed in the world at the time, during the seventeenth century. There was an enormous output of painting, so much so that prices declined seriously during the period. From the 1620s, Dutch painting broke decisively from the Baroque style typified by Rubens in neighboring Flanders into a more realistic style of depiction, very much concerned with the real world. Types of paintings included historical paintings, portraiture, landscapes and cityscapes, still lifes and genre paintings. In the last four of these categories, Dutch painters established styles upon which art in Europe depended for the next two centuries. Paintings often had a moralistic subtext. The Golden Age never really recovered from the French invasion of 1671, although there was a twilight period lasting until about 1710.

Dutch painters, especially in the northern provinces, tried to evoke emotions in the spectator by letting him/her be a bystander to a scene of profound intimacy. Portrait painting thrived in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. A great many portraits were commissioned by wealthy individuals. Group portraits similarly were often ordered by prominent members of a city's civilian guard, by boards of trustees and regents, and the like. Often group portraits were paid for by each portrayed person individually. The amount paid determined each person's place in the picture, either head to toe in full regalia in the foreground or face only in the back of the group. Sometimes all group members paid an equal sum, which was likely to lead to quarrels when some members gained a more prominent place in the picture than others. Allegories, in which painted objects conveyed symbolic meaning about the subject, were often applied. Many genre paintings, which seemingly only depicted everyday life, actually illustrated Dutch proverbs and sayings, or conveyed a moralistic message, the meaning of which is not always easy to decipher nowadays. Favourite topics in Dutch landscapes were the dunes along the western sea coast, rivers with their broad adjoining meadows where cattle grazed, often a silhouette of a city in the distance.

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Art, New York City

The Hague School were around at the start of the nineteenth century. They showed all that is gravest or brightest in the landscape of Holland, all that is heaviest or clearest in its atmosphere. Amsterdam Impressionism was current during the middle of the Nineteenth century at about the same time as French Impressionism. The painters put their impressions onto canvas with rapid, visible strokes of the brush. They focused on depicting the everyday life of the city. Late nineteenth-century Amsterdam was a bustling centre of art and literature. Vincent van Gogh was a post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. In the 20th century, the Netherlands produced many fine painters and artists. Around 1905-1910 pointillism was flourishing. Between 1911 and 1914 all the latest art movements arrived in the Netherlands one after another including cubism, futurism and expressionism. After World War I, De Stijl (the style) was led by Piet Mondrian and promoted a pure art, consisting only of vertical and horizontal lines, and the use of primary colors.

Architecture

Main article: Architecture of the Netherlands

Koninklijk Paleis (Royale Palace) by Jacob van Campen

The Dutch Golden Age roughly spanned the 17th century. Due to the thriving economy, cities expanded greatly. New town halls and storehouses were built, and many new canals were dug out in and around various cities such as Delft, Leiden and Amsterdam for defence and transport purposes. Many wealthy merchants had a new houses built along these canals. These houses were generally very narrow and had ornamented façades that befitted their new status. The architecture of the first republic in Northern Europe was marked by sobriety and restraint, and was meant to reflect democratic values by quoting extensively from classical antiquity. In general, architecture in the Low Countries, both in the Counter-Reformation-influenced south and Protestant-dominated north, remained strongly invested in northern Italian Renaissance and Mannerist forms that predated the Roman High Baroque style of Borromini and Bernini. Instead, the more austere form practiced in the Dutch Republic was well suited to major building patterns: palaces for the House of Orange and new civic buildings, uninfluenced by the Counter-Reformation style that made some headway in Antwerp. At the end of the 19th century there was a remarkable neo-gothic stream or Gothic Revival both in church and in public architecture, notably by the Roman Catholic Pierre Cuypers, who was inspired by the Frenchman Viollet le Duc. The Amsterdam Rijksmuseum (1876–1885) and Amsterdam Centraal Station (1881–1889) belong to his main buildings.

Hilversum City Hall by Willem Marinus Dudok

During the 20th century Dutch architects played a leading role in the development of modern architecture. Out of the early 20th century rationalist architecture of Berlage, architect of the Beurs van Berlage, three separate groups developed during the 1920s, each with their own view on which direction modern architecture should take. Expressionist architects like M. de Klerk and P.J. Kramer in Amsterdam (See Amsterdam School). Functionalist architects (Nieuwe Zakelijkheid or Nieuwe Bouwen) like Mart Stam, L.C. van der Vlugt, Willem Marinus Dudok and Johannes Duiker had good ties with the international modernist group CIAM. A third group came out of the De Stijl movement, among them J.J.P Oud and Gerrit Rietveld. Both architects later built in a functionalist style. During the '50s and '60s a new generation of architects like Aldo van Eyck, J.B. Bakema and Herman Hertzberger, known as the ‘Forum generation’ (named after a magazine called Forum) formed a connection with international groups like Team 10. From the '80s to the present Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) became one of the leading world architects. With him, formed a new generation of Dutch architects working in a modernist tradition.

Literature

Main article: Dutch literature

Eduard Douwes Dekker, also known as Multatuli

Some of the most important and internationally awarded writers are:

16th Century:

• Desiderius Erasmus