"There are some very stimulating essays in this book, which anyone interested in seventeenth-century Dutch art will want to explore."

Burlington Magazine

In Art in History/History in Art fourteen noted historians and art historians present essays aimed at an enhanced understanding of seventeenth-century Dutch culture. The intellectual breadth of this impressive medley of perspectives is striking. The wide-ranging analyses include a consideration of social and economic history, an interpretation of realism in Dutch painting from the viewpoint of taxonomy and marine history, and an examination of numerical models for the study of Dutch art within the context of Dutch culture. The result is a constructive critique of extant methodologies and an interdisciplinary inquiry into the interaction between the content of pictures and the cultures that produce them.

Contributors are Jochen Becker, Willem A. Brandenburg, David Freedberg, E. de Jongh, John Michael Montias, Gary Schwartz, Eric J. Sluijter, J. W. Smit, Linda Stone-Ferrier, Richard W. Unger, Jan de Vries, Lyckle de Vries, John Walsh, and Ad van der Woude.

David Freedberg is professor of art history at Columbia University. His books include Dutch Landscape Prints of the Seventeenth Century, Rubens: The Life of Christ after the Passion, and The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Jan de Vries is professor of history and economics at the University of California, Berkeley.