III.

Dutch Genre Painting

The most illustrious national school of genre painting was that of the Netherlands in the 17th century. Probably never before or since was the ordinary life of a nation depicted so fully as was the Dutch life of this period. Not only the great masters but also the less outstanding Dutch painters excelled at it. The most important of the Dutch genre painters were the so-called little masters, including Gerard Ter Borch, Jan Steen, Gabriel Metsu, Pieter de Hooch, Gerrit Dou, and Adriaen van Ostade. The three leading 17th-century Dutch masters, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Jan Vermeer, also created genre paintings of unrivalled beauty.