Why are the peasants "Dutch"?

[Mark Kohut]

>From a long wikipedia article on Dutch peasants and paintings. They are
seen historically as secular subjects under a still-unified Heavenly City
of Belief.

Genre paintings <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_paintings> show scenes
that prominently feature figures to whom no specific identity can be
attached – they are not portraits or intended as historical figures.
Together with landscape painting, the development and enormous popularity
of genre painting is the most distinctive feature of Dutch painting in this
period, although in this case they were also very popular in Flemish
painting. Many are single figures, like the Vermeer *Milkmaid
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milkmaid_(Vermeer)>* above; others may
show large groups at some social occasion, or crowds. There were a large
number of sub-types within the genre: single figures, peasant families,
tavern scenes, "merry company <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_company>"
parties, women at work about the house, scenes of village or town
festivities (though these were still more common in Flemish painting),
market scenes, barracks scenes, scenes with horses or farm animals, in
snow, by moonlight, and many more. In fact most of these had specific terms
in Dutch, but there was no overall Dutch term equivalent to "genre
painting" – until the late 18th century the English often called them
"drolleries".[36]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age_painting#cite_note-36> Some
artists worked mostly within one of these sub-types, especially after about
1625.[37]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age_painting#cite_note-37> Over
the course of the century, genre paintings tended to reduce in size.

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 4:59 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:

>
> "All these horizontal here, these comrades in arms, look just as rosy as a
> bunch of Dutch peasants dreaming of their certain resurrection in the next
> few minutes." (pp. 4-5)
>
> Is Pynchon thinking here of a particular Dutch painting from art history,
> or is this the first appearance of the Katje Borgesius thread? Or both or
> neither?
>
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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