companied by the rise of a prosperous Dutch middle class who had greater leisure time and more disposable income than ever before. The fine arts benefitted greatly from the increased wealth of the general Dutch population. The new middle class of merchants and traders "wanted paintings to hang on their walls as evidence of their growing wealth and rising social position" (Gardner, 1980, p. 661). By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the people of the Netherlands had become passionate for paintings. In fact, as noted by Janson, after 1600 "the general public developed so insatiable an appetite for pictures that the whole country became gripped in a kind of collector's mania" (Janson, 1991, pp. 571-572). This atmosphere was highly conducive to creativity, and as such Dutch artists were able to experiment in terms of both subject and style, allowing painting to become increasingly diverse and sophisticated.
The political environment of the time also had a great impact on Baroque painting. In the early part of the period, the Netherlands was subject to imperial rule, first under the Hapsburg dynasty, and later under Spain. Even during that time, individualism and self-expression were highly valued by the Dutch people. Osten and Vey have stated that "the individual enjoyed comparatively great freedom; the time was rich in unusual and original minds" (Von der Osten and Vey, 1969, p. 176). This spirit gained in momentum after 1579, when various states joined together in the Union of Utrecht to create a Dutch Republic. The act of forging an independent nation gave the people of the Netherlands a strong sense of "civic pride" (Gardner, 19080, p. 660). This feeling was clearly expressed in the art of the period, and painting flourished. In fact, all the cultural spheres were deeply affected by the increased political freedom and the social changes it brought. Not only painting and the other fine arts, but literature and ...