The Milkmaid

~~It is curious that most European languages use the French word genre, which means ‘kind’, ‘sort’, or ‘variety’, to categorize the type of painting that depicts scenes of everyday life. Precisely when or how this special usage became...

~~Contemporary artists often help us understand how their work is made by revealing their creative process. But this was not always the case, and it can be difficult to reconstruct how a painting was made centuries ago by just looking at it. Other painters could always use their experience to speculate, but it is only with the advent of...

~After Dordrecht and Haarlem respectively, Delft was the third oldest city in the Netherlands, having been granted a charter by the Count of Holland, William II, in 1246. For the following discussion, see Delft 1981; Delft 1982–3; Israel 1989, passim;...

~~Among art historians, a new connoisseurship has replaced the old. Connoisseur: an expert; one who knows, who speaks with authority; who understands the techniques and principles of an art and is competent to act as a critical judge. The old connoisseurship was the practice of passing judgment on art or artist according to...