Dutch Masters From the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Exhibition themes:
Travelling artists

A number of seventeenth-century artists from the Netherlands chose to depict not their own surroundings, but the idealized landscape of Italy. They are known as the Dutch Italianate painters. Among them were many artists from Utrecht, a largely Catholic city which traditionally maintained strong ties with Rome. The Eternal City was the primary destination of these Dutch painters, where in the period 1605 to 1620 many of them fell under the spell of the legendary Caravaggio (1573-1610). These so-called Utrecht Caravaggisti often adopted Caravaggio's choice of subject matter and his realistic painting style, as well as emulating the dramatic depiction of light and the striking contrasts between light and dark which characterize his work. In their turn, the Utrecht Caravaggisti and other Italianate painters influenced the work of Dutch artists who never visited Italy, such as Paulus Potter, Aelbert Cuyp, Frans Hals and even Rembrandt. The National Gallery of Victoria's early Rembrandt, Two old men disputing, shows the clear influence of Caravaggio on the young painter.