Atlantic West Europe (1612–1623): Religious Conflict, Economic Growth, and Early Baroque Flourishing

The period 1612–1623 in Atlantic West Europe—including northern France, the Low Countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg), and the Atlantic and Channel coastal regions—was marked by significant religious and political tensions, ongoing economic prosperity, particularly in the Dutch Republic, and notable artistic and intellectual developments. Amidst deepening divisions, the region saw sustained commercial dynamism, evolving political landscapes, and heightened cultural creativity characteristic of early Baroque Europe.

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Political and Military Developments

Dutch Republic: Religious Strife and Internal Division

• Following the Twelve Years' Truce (1609–1621), the Dutch Republic enjoyed temporary peace but faced intense internal religious conflicts, primarily between the Calvinist factions: strict orthodox Gomarists and the moderate, tolerant Arminians.

• The political struggle climaxed in the Synod of Dort (1618–1619), resulting in the condemnation of Arminianism, and the subsequent execution of the influential statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1619), consolidating power under the orthodox Calvinists and the House of Orange.

France: Political Instability and Royal Minority

• France faced renewed instability after the assassination of Henry IV (1610). His son, Louis XIII (r. 1610–1643), assumed the throne at nine, initiating a regency under Marie de' Medici, characterized by internal strife, noble rebellions, and court intrigue.

• The period saw the rise of Cardinal Richelieu, who entered the royal council in 1624, beginning the consolidation of royal authority, but in these early years, political control was fragmented and uncertain, weakening France temporarily.

Spanish Netherlands: Military Pressure and Strategic Positioning

• The Spanish Netherlands, governed from Brussels, remained militarized and strategically important. The Spanish monarchy under Philip III (r. 1598–1621) and later Philip IV (r. 1621–1665) sought to fortify the southern Low Countries against future conflicts, preparing defenses around Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges, while maintaining firm Catholic orthodoxy against Protestant incursions from the Dutch Republic.

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Economic Developments: Maritime Prosperity and Expanding Trade Networks

Continued Dutch Economic Expansion

• Amsterdam reinforced its role as Europe's financial and commercial hub, dominated by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), whose Asian trade brought immense wealth into the Republic. The VOC’s monopoly ensured Amsterdam’s financial markets thrived, becoming Europe’s center for banking, commodity trading, and financial innovation.

• Dutch shipbuilding and navigation advancements increased maritime trade capacity, fostering expansive commerce with Baltic, Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Asian markets.

French and Flemish Trade Recovery

• French port cities—Bordeaux, La Rochelle, and Nantes—expanded their maritime commerce. Bordeaux's wine exports to England and Northern Europe grew significantly, establishing the city's global reputation for high-quality wines.

• Flemish towns under Spanish governance, particularly Antwerp, partially recovered economically, albeit constrained by military and religious restrictions. Nonetheless, Antwerp continued modest financial activities, trading primarily in luxury goods and textiles.

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Religious and Intellectual Developments

Dutch Religious Polarization

• The Synod of Dort decisively shaped Dutch Calvinism, reinforcing religious orthodoxy while significantly reducing tolerance toward dissent. The Synod's rulings profoundly impacted Dutch religious, cultural, and intellectual life, with lasting repercussions on religious minorities such as the Arminians and Mennonites.

Catholic Renewal and Counter-Reformation Influence

• The Catholic Counter-Reformation strengthened in the Spanish Netherlands and northern France, bolstered by new religious orders, notably the Jesuits, who significantly influenced education, missionary activity, and theological scholarship.

• Catholic educational institutions flourished in France (Sorbonne, Jesuit colleges) and the Spanish Netherlands (University of Leuven), promoting Catholic theology and Baroque cultural expression.

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Cultural and Artistic Developments

Early Baroque Art and Cultural Patronage

• The Dutch Republic experienced a remarkable flowering of visual arts, with painters such as Frans Hals in Haarlem, whose dynamic portraits embodied early Baroque realism. Emerging artists like the young Rembrandt van Rijn (active from the early 1620s) began their careers, heralding a golden age of Dutch painting.

• Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, based in Antwerp, gained prominence during this period. His elaborate, vibrant Baroque style gained international acclaim, influencing European art profoundly through commissions from Spanish, French, and English patrons.

French Artistic and Cultural Life

• France’s artistic expression continued its shift towards early Baroque styles, strongly influenced by court patronage under Marie de' Medici. Parisian architecture and arts reflected royal authority and ambition, exemplified by the construction of the Luxembourg Palace (1615–1625), a central Baroque architectural project initiated by Marie de' Medici.

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Social and Urban Developments

Urbanization and Social Mobility

• Amsterdam’s population soared, driven by prosperity, religious refugees, and international merchants, resulting in significant urban expansion, improved public infrastructure, and increased social mobility.

• French urban centers, including Bordeaux, Nantes, and Rouen, benefited economically from expanded maritime trade, fostering a dynamic urban merchant class contributing to regional growth and stability.

Rural Hardship and Migration

• Conversely, rural regions in northern France and parts of the southern Low Countries continued to face hardships due to recurring harvest failures, heavy taxation, and ongoing warfare preparations, prompting significant rural-to-urban migration and exacerbating urban poverty in some areas.

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Legacy and Historical Significance

The era 1612–1623 in Atlantic West Europe significantly shaped regional political, religious, and cultural landscapes:

• Politically, the Dutch Republic solidified its internal structure around Calvinist orthodoxy, setting conditions for future stability yet reducing religious pluralism. France, conversely, faced short-term fragmentation and instability, awaiting Richelieu’s forthcoming political consolidation.

• Economically, sustained commercial and maritime prosperity entrenched Amsterdam’s economic preeminence, furthering Atlantic West Europe’s global influence.

• Religiously, the decisive internal struggles within Dutch Calvinism and intensified Counter-Reformation activity in Catholic regions laid a crucial groundwork for future religious and cultural developments.

• Culturally, the early Baroque flourished prominently, represented by figures like Rubens and emerging Dutch masters, signaling an artistic golden age that influenced European cultural trends for centuries.

Thus, by 1623, Atlantic West Europe had navigated considerable turmoil and transformation, setting a resilient foundation for continued political, economic, religious, and cultural evolution into the heart of the seventeenth century.

Peter Paul Rubens’ first version of the Massacre of the Innocents, painted by the artist around 1611–12, is widely regarded as a demonstration of the artist's learnings from his time spent in Italy between 1600 and 1608, where he had observed first-hand the works of Italian Baroque painters like Caravaggio.

These influences are seen in this painting through the sheer drama and emotive dynamism of the scene, as well as the rich color.

There is also evidence of the use of chiaroscuro.

Artemisia's Gentilischi's Giuditta che decapita Oloferne (Judith beheading Holofernes) (1612–1613), displayed in the Capodimonte Museum of Naples, is impressive for the violence portrayed.

She had in 1612 been denied access to the all-male professional academies for art, her early talent notwithstanding.

Her father had been working with Agostino Tassi to decorate the vaults of Casino della Rose inside the Pallavicini Rospigliosi Palace in Rome, so Orazio had hired the painter to tutor his daughter privately.

During this tutelage, Tassi had raped Artemisia.

Another man, Cosimo Quorlis, had helped Tassi with the rape.

After the initial rape, Artemisia had continued to have sexual relations with Tassi, with the expectation that they were going to be married.

However, Tassi had reneged on his promise to marry Artemisia after he heard the rumor that she was having an affair with another man.

Quorlis had threatened that if he could not have her, he would publicly humiliate her.

Orazio had pressed charges against Tassi only after he learned that Artemisia and Tassi were not going to be married.

Orazio also claimed that Tassi had stolen a painting of Judith from the Gentileschi household.

The major issue of this trial was the fact that Tassi had deflowered Artemisia.

If Artemisia had not been a virgin before Tassi raped her, the Gentileschis would not have been able to press charges.

In the ensuing seven-month trial, it is discovered that Tassi had planned to murder his wife, had enjoined in adultery with his sister-in-law, and had planned to steal some of Orazio’s paintings.

During the trial, Artemisia had been given a gynecological examination and had been tortured using thumbscrews.

At the end of the trial Tassi had been sentenced to one year's imprisonment.

The trial subsequently will influence the feminist view of Artemisia Gentileschi during the late twentieth century.

One month after the trial, in order to restore his daughter's honor, Orazio had arranged for her to marry Pierantonio Stiattesi, a modest artist from Florence.

Artemisia Gentileschi, born in Rome on July 8, 1593, as the eldest child of the Tuscan painter Orazio Gentileschi, had been introduced to painting in her father's workshop, showing much more talent than her brothers, who worked alongside her.

She had learned drawing, how to mix color and how to paint.

Since her father's style had taken inspiration from Caravaggio during that period, her style had been just as heavily influenced in turn, but her approach to subject matter is different from her father's, as her paintings are highly naturalistic, where Orazio's are idealized.

The first work of the young seventeen-year-old Artemisia (even if many at the time suspected that she was helped by her father) had been the Susanna e i Vecchioni (Susanna and the Elders) (1610, Schönborn collection in Pommersfelden).

The picture shows how Artemisia has assimilated the realism of Caravaggio without being indifferent to the language of the Bologna school (which had had Annibale Carracci among its major artists).

It is one of the few Susanna paintings showing the two men planning their sexual harassment.

It is likely that Artemisia had been sexually harassed and has painted Susanna as a reflection.

El Greco, in the last years of his life, paints The Opening of the Fifth Seal (or The Fifth Seal of the Apocalypse or The Vision of Saint John) for a side-altar of the church of Saint John the Baptist outside the walls of Toledo.

Competed in 1614, El Greco's painting will be referred to before 1908 as Profane Love.

Cossio had doubts about the title and suggested The Opening of the Fifth Seal.

The Metropolitan Museum, where the painting is kept, comments: "the picture is unfinished and much damaged and abraded.” The subject is taken from the Book of Revelation (6:9-11), where the souls of persecuted martyrs cry out to God for justice upon their persecutors on earth.

The ecstatic figure of St. John dominates the canvas, while behind him naked souls writhe in a chaotic storm of emotion as they receive white robes of salvation. (It has been suggested that the Opening of the Fifth Seal served as an inspiration for the early Cubist works of Pablo Picasso, especially Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which mirrors the expressionistic angularity of the painting. When Picasso was working on Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, he visited his friend Ignacio Zuloaga, a painter instrumental in reviving European interest in El Greco, in his studio in Paris and studied El Greco's Opening of the Fifth Seal.)

Artemisia and Pierantonio had moved shortly after their marriage to Florence, where Artemisia receives a commission for a painting at Casa Buonarroti and becomes a successful court painter, enjoying the patronage of the Medici family and Charles I of England.

It has been proposed that during this period Artemisia also painted the Madonna col Bambino (The Virgin and Child), currently in the Spada Gallery, Rome.

Jacob Jordaens was born on May 19, 1593, the first of eleven children, to the wealthy linen merchant Jacob Jordaens Sr. and Barbara van Wolschaten in Antwerp.

Little is known about Jordaens's early education.

It can be assumed that he received the advantages of the education usually provided for children of his social class.

This assumption is supported by his clear handwriting, his competence in French and in his knowledge of mythology.

Jordaens’ familiarity with biblical subjects is evident in his many religious paintings, and his personal interaction with the Bible is strengthened by his later conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism.

Like Rubens, he had studied under Adam van Noort, who is his only teacher.

During this time Jordaens had lived in Van Noort's house and become very close to the rest of the family.

After eight years of training with Van Noort, he had enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke as a "waterscilder", or watercolor artist.

This medium is often used for preparing tapestry cartoons in the seventeenth century, although examples of his earliest watercolor works are no longer extant.

In the same year as his entry into the guild, 1616, he marries his teacher's eldest daughter, Anna Catharina van Noort, with whom he will have three children.

The Satyr and the Peasant, of which Jordaens is to paint many versions, illustrates a moralizing fable from Aesop's book of "Fables", which was developed in the sixth Century BCE in ancient Greece.

The story begins with a man and a satyr.

One cold day, as they talked, the man put his fingers to his mouth and blew on them.

When the satyr asked the reason for this, he told him that he did it to warm his hands.

Later on that day when they sat down to eat, the man raised his dish of hot food towards his mouth and blew on it.

When the satyr again inquired the reason, he said that he did it to cool the food, which was too hot.

The satyr then informs the man, "I can no longer consider you as a friend, a fellow who with the same breath blows hot and cold."

The moral of this story is the duality of human nature, although some believe that Jordaens chose this story not for his interest in its moral lesson, but for his interest in rendering a peasant scene.

The particular moment which Jordaens depicts in his painting is when the satyr declares that he cannot trust the man who blows both hot and cold.

The satyr raises his hand and begins to stand up and leave the man's home.

The man eats his porridge while the satyr rises abruptly addressing him.

Jordaens chooses to place the scene inside a farmhouse, complete with a bull, dog, cat, and rooster integrated around the furniture and figures.

A variety of age groups are represented around the table; a young boy stands behind the man's chair, an old woman holds a young child, while a youthful woman peers over the Satyr's shoulder.

Characteristic of Jordaens’ artistic style all the figures are pushed forward toward the front of the composition, crowded together in this small space.

Also Jordaens uses tenebrism and chiaroscuro to create dramatic lighting, which illuminates certain figures in the scene, such as the baby in the old woman's lap.

Jordaens creates a sense of naturalism with the depiction of the dirty feet of the seated peasant seated in the foreground, linking him with the Caravaggistic tendencies contemporaneous in Flemish art of the time.

Jordaens creates two versions of this subject around 1620-21.

For this version, it seems he may have used the same female sitter for The Satyr and the Peasant as he did for The Adoration of the Shepherds, and it is thought that Jordaens used this painting as instruction for his assistants and pupils, as many versions and copies of the scene have been found which bear the same style, but without the master's stamp.

Frans Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp, a city from which Hals' family, like many, had fled during the Fall of Antwerp (1584-1585) from the Spanish Netherlands to Haarlem, where he will live for the remainder of his life.

Hals had studied under another Flemish-émigré, Karel van Mander (1548–1606), whose Mannerist influence, however, is not noticeably visible in his work.

He had at the age of twenty-seven become a member of the city's painter's corporation, the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke, and he started to earn money as an art restorer for the city council.

He worked on their large art collection that Karel van Mander had described in his book The Painting-Book (Middle Dutch: Het Schilder-Boeck), published in 1604.

The most notable of these were the works of Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Jan van Scorel and Jan Mostaert, that hung in de St. Jans Kerk in Haarlem.

The restoration work had been paid for by the city of Haarlem, since all religious art was confiscated after the iconoclasm, but the entire collection of paintings will not be formally possessed by the city council until 1625, after the city fathers had decided which paintings were suitable for the city hall.

The remaining art that was considered too "Roman Catholic" will be sold to Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen, a fellow guild member, on the grounds that he remove it from the city.

It is under these circumstances that Hals began his career in portraiture, since the market for religious themes had disappeared.

The earliest known example of Hals' own art is the 1611 portrait of Jacobus Zaffius.

His 'breakthrough' comes in 1616, with the life-size group portrait, The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Militia Company.

The prolific Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens is a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasizes movement, color, and sensuality.

Altarpieces such as The Raising of the Cross (1610) and The Descent from the Cross (1611–1614) for the Cathedral of Our Lady had been particularly important in establishing Rubens as Flanders' leading painter shortly after his return to Antwerp.

The Raising of the Cross, for example, a prime example of Baroque religious art, demonstrates the artist's synthesis of Tintoretto's Crucifixion for the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, Michelangelo's dynamic figures, and Rubens's own personal style.

His fondness of painting full-figured women, such as Venus at the Mirror, circa 1615, will rise to the terms 'Rubensian' or 'Rubenesque' for plus-sized women.

The term 'Rubensiaans' is also today commonly used in Dutch to denote such women.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produces paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens is a classically educated humanist scholar and art collector.

He has used the production of prints and book title-pages, especially for his friend Balthasar Moretus—owner of the large Plantin-Moretus publishing house—to further extend his fame throughout Europe during this part of his career.

With the exception of a couple of brilliant etchings, he only produces drawings for these himself, leaving the printmaking to specialists, such as Lucas Vorsterman.

He has recruited a number of engravers trained by Goltzius, who he carefully schools in the more vigorous style he wants.

He also designs the last significant woodcuts before the nineteenth century revival in the technique.

Rubens has established copyright for his prints, most significantly in Holland, where his work is widely copied through print.

In addition, he has established copyrights for his work in England, France and Spain.

In November 1616, Rubens begins work on his famous classical tapestries, when a contract is signed in Antwerp with cloth dyers Jan Raes and Frans Sweerts in Brussels, and the rich Genoese merchant Franco Cattaneo.