{"id":516,"date":"2021-06-03T18:23:26","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T18:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/?page_id=516"},"modified":"2021-06-03T18:23:26","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T18:23:26","slug":"whose-golden-age","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/whose-golden-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Whose \u201cGolden Age\u201d? A Reconsideration of Current Terminology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In September 2019, the Amsterdam Museum announced that it was changing the title of its Portrait Gallery of the Golden Age to the Portrait Gallery of the 17th Century. In his article \u201cThe Problem of \u2018the Golden Age,\u2019\u201d curator Tom van der Molen explained that the term \u201cdoes not give an accurate representation of that century and creates a barrier impeding efforts to tell the history of that era in ways that are relevant to the entire breadth of the population of Amsterdam and the Netherlands at large.\u201d The moniker became popular in the 19th century during a period of intense nationalism, to celebrate the era of Dutch history known for its unprecedented trade, science, military, and art. The \u201cGolden Age\u201d thus carries associations of peace, prosperity and innocence while ignoring the poverty, war, slavery, and conquest that also characterized the period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some scholars have attempted to separate the usage of the term in historical and art historical contexts, since the era certainly witnessed a boom in artistic production and creativity. However, as Van der Molen rightly observes, \u201cArt history does not play out in a universe that is cut off from the rest of history.\u201d The art of the 17th century, though largely produced by those benefiting from the influx of wealth, often depicted the lower classes, who did not receive any of the period\u2019s gold, and enslaved people, who performed the unpaid labor to extract the raw material for wealthy Dutchmen. Although Dutch politician Michel Rog protested the Amsterdam Museum\u2019s change, claiming that \u201cerasing the past is nonsense,\u201d replacing the term \u201cGolden Age\u201d with \u201c17th century\u201d instead creates space for a diversity of stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recognizability of the phrase \u201cGolden Age,\u201d just like the \u201cBelle Epoque\u201d or even the \u201cRenaissance,\u201d however, has caused many museums to resist changing their terminology.\u00a0The Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands, has instead decided to \u201capproach [sic] history from different perspectives,\u201d specifically in its upcoming exhibition on slavery, rather than rewriting its labels. Considering museums\u2019 supposed commitment to accessibility, this does not go far enough in the effort to reconsider how \u201cgolden\u201d this period actually was for all involved. This catalogue intentionally utilizes the terms \u201c17th century\u201d and \u201cearly modern\u201d (the period roughly between 1500 and 1800) to provide a more accurate and inclusive description of a period of Dutch history that was as tarnished by poverty, slavery, and conquest as it was blessed by prosperity and artistic production. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by Simone Edgar Holmes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bibliography<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boffey, Daniel. \u201cEnd of Golden Age: Dutch museum bans term from exhibits.\u201d The Guardian<\/em>. September 13, 2019. https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/sep\/13\/end-of-golden-age-amsterdam-museum-bans-term-from-exhibits#. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van der Molen, Tom. \u201cThe Problem of \u2018the Golden Age.\u2019\u201d CODART. <\/em>November, 2019. https:\/\/www.codart.nl\/feature\/curators-project\/the-problem-of-the-golden-age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In September 2019, the Amsterdam Museum announced that it was changing the title of its Portrait Gallery of the Golden Age to the Portrait Gallery of the 17th Century. In his article \u201cThe Problem of \u2018the Golden Age,\u2019\u201d curator Tom van der Molen explained that the term \u201cdoes not give an accurate representation of that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-516","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":519,"href":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/516\/revisions\/519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/museum.middcreate.net\/projects\/early-modern-dutch-prints\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}