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Beauty and Simplicity: the Power of Fine Art in Moral Teaching On Education in Seventeenth-Century Holland

University of Groningen, Groningen Research School for the Study of the Humanities

Seventeenth century Dutch genre painting played a major role in the promotion of the pursuit of family and educational virtues. Packing moralistic messages in fine paintings was considered as a very effective moralistic communication policy in a culture in which sending such moralising messages was very popular. The flourishing art market supplied great numbers of moralising paintings and drawings on education and domestic virtues, so contributing to the reconciliation of the existing tensions, or, in the words of Simon Schama, embarrassment between beauty and the promoted virtues of frugality and simplicity. A broad middle class created its own private surrounding in which morality and enjoying the beauty of moralising on the family and parenting went together, as is made clear by the analysis of a series of representative images. Dutch parents, moralists, and painters knew the power of beauty in moralising on the family.

Key Words: moral education • art • 17th century • the Dutch Republic

Journal of Family History, Vol. 34, No. 2, 166-188 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0363199008328377


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