DUTCH

A short list of Famous Dutch People

Vincent van Gogh (March 30 1853 – July 29 1890)

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th century art as a result of its vivid colors and emotional impact. He did not begin painting until his late twenties and he completed many of his best-known works in the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,000 artworks. Van Gogh suffered from anxiety and experienced frequent bouts of mental illness throughout his life. He died largely unknown at the age of 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Starry Night (Dutch: De sterrennacht) is painted in June 1889, it depicts the view outside of his sanitarium room window at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (located in southern France) at night, although it was painted from memory during the day. It has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The painting is among Van Gogh's most well-known works and marks a decisive turn towards greater imaginative freedom in his art.

Rembrandt van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669)

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history.

The Night Watch (Dutch: De Nachtwacht) (1642) is one of his most famous works and contrary to popular belief, this work was a success from the start. Part of the canvas was cut off to make the painting fit its new position when it was moved to Amsterdam town hall in 1715. The correct name of the painting is Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq.

For much of its existence, the painting was coated with a dark varnish and became darker which gave the incorrect impression that it depicted a night scene, leading to that in the 18th century the painting became known as the Night Watch.

I have seen this painting several times in real, and it is absolutely stunning. The powerful contrast of light and shade heightens the sense of movement is incredible! Also, it might look small on the picture, but in reality, it is high 379,5cm × wide 453,5cm.

Johannes Vermeer (1632 – December 1675)

Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He seems never to have been particularly wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced relatively few paintings.

The painting Girl with a Pearl Earring (Dutch: Het Meisje met de Parel) is one of Johannes Vermeer's masterworks and, as the name implies, uses a pearl earring for a focal point. It is now in the collection of the Mauritshuis gallery in The Hague, but in 2013 has toured the United States with other works while the museum completes building work. It was at the High Museum in Atlanta until the end of September 2013, then in New York City at the Frick Collection from October 22, 2013 to January 19, 2014

Piet Mondrian (March 7, 1872 – February 1, 1944)

Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian was a Dutch painter.

He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed neoplasticism. This consisted of white ground, upon which was painted a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and the three primary colors.

In the 1920s, Mondrian began to create the definitive abstract paintings for which he is best known. He limited his palette to white, black, gray, and the three primary colors, with the composition constructed from thick, black horizontal and vertical lines that delineated the outlines of the various rectangles of color or reserve. The simplification of the pictorial elements was essential for Mondrian's creation of a new abstract art, distinct from Cubism and Futurism. The assorted blocks of color and lines of differing width create rhythms that ebb and flow across the surface of the canvas, echoing the varied rhythm of modern life. The composition is asymmetrical, as in all of his mature paintings, with one large dominant block of color, here red, balanced by distribution of the smaller blocks of yellow, blue gray, and white around it. This style has been quoted by many artists and designers in all aspects of culture since the 1920s.

Gerrit Rietveld (24 June 1888–25 June 1964)

Gerrit Thomas Rietveld was a Dutch furniture designer and architect. One of the principal members of the Dutch artistic movement called De Stijl, Rietveld is famous for his Red and Blue Chair and for the Rietveld Schröder House, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Red and Blue Chair is a chair designed in 1917 by Gerrit Rietveld. It represents one of the first explorations by the De Stijl art movement in three dimensions.

The original chair was constructed of unstained beech wood and was not painted until the early 1920s. Fellow member of De Stijl and architect, Bart van der Leck, saw his original model and suggested that he add bright colours. He built the new model of thinner wood and painted it entirely black with areas of primary colors attributed to De Stijl movement. The effect of this color scheme made the chair seem to almost disappear against the black walls and floor of the Schröder house where it was later placed. The areas of color appeared to float, giving it an almost transparent structure.

The Rietveld Schröder House (Dutch: Rietveld Schröderhuis) (also known as the Schröder House) in Utrecht was built in 1924 by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld for Mrs. Truus Schröder-Schräder and her three children.

She commissioned the house to be designed preferably without walls. Rietveld worked side by side with Schröder-Schräder to create the house. He sketched the first possible design for the building; Schroder-Schrader was not pleased. She envisioned a house that was free from association and could create a connection between the inside and outside. The house is one of the best known examples of De Stijl-architecture and arguably the only true De Stijl building. Mrs. Schröder lived in the house until her death in 1985. The house was restored by Bertus Mulder and now is a museum open for visits. It is a listed monument since 1976 and UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.

M. C. Escher (17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972)

Maurits Cornelis Escher usually referred to as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations.

Relativity is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in December 1953. It depicts a world in which the normal laws of gravity do not apply. The architectural structure seems to be the centre of an idyllic community, with most of its inhabitants casually going about their ordinary business, such as dining. There are windows and doorways leading to park-like outdoor settings. All of the figures are dressed in identical attire and have featureless bulb-shaped heads. Identical characters such as these can be found in many other Escher works.

This is one of Escher’s most popular works and has been used in a variety of ways, as it can be appreciated both artistically and scientifically. Interrogations about perspective and the representation of three-dimensional images in a two-dimensional picture are at the core of Escher's work, and Relativity represents one of his greatest achievements in this domain.

I could make a long list of famous Dutch people, but I will not. But there is one famous Dutch person that I have to be mention.

Anne Frank (12 June 1929 – early March 1945)

Annelies "Anne" Marie Frank is one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her wartime diary The Diary of a Young Girl has been the basis for several plays and films. Born in the city of Frankfurt in Weimar Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Born a German national, Frank lost her citizenship in 1941. She gained international fame posthumously after her diary was published. It documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

The family was apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The diary was retrieved by Miep Gies, who gave it to Anne's father, Otto Frank, the only known survivor of the family. The diary has now been published in more than 60 different languages.

First published in 1947 under the title; Het Achterhuis. Dagboekbrieven 14 juni 1942 – 1 augustus 1944 (The Annex: Diary Notes 14 June 1942 – 1 August 1944), it received widespread critical and popular attention on the appearance of its English language translation "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" in 1952. Its popularity inspired the 1955 play The Diary of Anne Frank by the screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, which they subsequently adapted for the screen for the 1959 movie version. The book is in several lists of the top books of the 20th century.