Contending Representations I

The Dutch Republic and the Lure of Monarchy

Edited by Joris Oddens Edited by Alessandro Metlica Edited by Gloria Moorman

Book cover: Contending Representations I

Extent: 212, 212 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Subjects: Art & Art History, Cultural Studies, Early Modern & Renaissance Studies

Series: Dunamis

Series volume number: 1

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(June 2023)

ISBN: 9782503605173

Price: $63.00

In stock

This volume is the first book-length study to thematise the representation of power in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. Bringing together scholars from different backgrounds, the volume aims to stimulate a cross-disciplinary dialogue about representations in art, literature, ritual, and other media. Within the Dutch Republic, different state actors – the city, the provincial states, the States General, the stadtholders, and individual power-holders – vied for the supremacy of power. A vital aspect of this persistent struggle was its representative dimension. In making representative claims about their place in the balance of power, these institutions all faced the challenge of developing a republican language that was both distinctive enough and universally understood. In the cultural repertoires available to political figures, artists, and intellectuals, republican models contended with monarchical ones. In visual and literary depictions, public ritual, and diplomatic encounters alike, the temptation to stand up to the grandeur of powerful European monarchies by borrowing from their representative traditions was not always easy to resist.

  • Edited by Joris Oddens
  • Edited by Alessandro Metlica
  • Edited by Gloria Moorman