Art history lecture series | Dutch painting in the 17th century
6 May 2026 - 24 Jun 2026
Wednesdays 10:30am to 11:30am
Members $130.00, recordings $95.00
Event detail
Join art historian Linda Yang for an informative and accessible six-week lecture series that provides foundational knowledge of the Dutch artists during the 17th century. Choose between attending lectures on-site in the Gallery’s auditorium or accessing the recordings later. Price includes all six lectures.
Sessions
Classes are on Wednesdays from 10:30am to 11:30am. Class dates:
- 6 May
- 13 May – CANCELLED
- 20 May
- 3 June
- 10 June
- 17 June
- 24 June
Note there will be no lecture on 27 May.
This lecture series is open to Members only. Become a Gallery Member today to enjoy this event and many more benefits.
Lecture theme
Money and morality: Dutch painting in the 17th century
Dutch painting proliferated in the 17th century. A hard won political and religious independence fostered a rising wealthy middle class, which in turn sparked a flourishing art scene. We will explore how art functioned in private and public domains, reflecting family values and the perennially compelling concerns of morality and immortality. Our survey will take us through narrative painting, portraiture and still life, unpacking the work of Judith Leyster, Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer among many others.
Lecture programme
History painting, or narrative painting, was the most highly regarded painting genre of this period. Necessitating a degree of scholarship on the part of the painter and viewer to interpret the narratives, history paintings were often complex, allegorical vehicles for moral lessons. We will attempt to ‘read’ these paintings ourselves and consider the clarity and impact of each work.
The Dutch Republic was officially Calvinist, which required a drastic departure from the more overt, bombastic visual expressions of Christianity seen in the recent Catholic past. This class will consider how artists in the Dutch Republic adapted their approaches to their new Calvinist Republic.
The personal, professional and political ambitions of patrons saw a rise in portraiture in the Dutch Golden Age. We will look at a range of portraiture including group portraits and marriage portraits, exploring how the subjects are memorialised in each.
Rembrandt’s oeuvre is singular in the Dutch Golden Age, in part because of his prolific creation of self-portraits. Seen as a body of work, they provide an insight to his artistic practice as a site of technical experimentation and reveal his professional ambitions.
Paintings of so-called ‘everyday life’ purport to give an insight into daily routines but often reveal more about the moral codes of the day. At turns humorous, ambiguous and enigmatic, these paintings offer multiple interpretations for us to untangle.
Relegated to the lowest status of painting, still life and landscapes were often dismissed as mere mimicry. However, complex subtexts could be folded into these works, with still-life arrangements acting as conduits for conversations around immortality and sin. Women artists were able to paint still lifes, side-stepping the need to study human anatomy, and created some of the most mesmerising examples of the genre.
About the lecturer
Linda Yang (BFA/BA Hons, MA)(BFA/BA Hons, MA) is an art historian and educator. She has taught a range of art history and photography classes to secondary and tertiary students as well as adults at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, New Zealand School of Education, Browne School of Art and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Linda was a long-time assistant of Marti Friedlander (1928–2016), one of New Zealand’s most famous and celebrated photographers. She is the archivist for the Marti Friedlander Archive, which is held by the Gallery’s E H McCormick Research Library. Linda prides herself on creating a safe environment where ideas can be exchanged and explored freely in discussion.