Lute Player 

Pieter Codde painted this genre scene, Lute Player, sometime in the 17th century in the Netherlands. It’s a scene of leisure, painted for the enjoyment of a rising middle class. Codde here presents a moment of social harmony, but art historians like myself wonder about the larger culture that made such images popular. For example, Dutch society was known for its strict Calvinist morals, yet paintings like this, depicting flirtation and refined sensuality, were in demand. Were they simply aspirational fantasies, or did they reflect a changing social reality? These paintings also served a didactic purpose, offering moral lessons disguised as entertainment. By examining period documents, literature, and other visual sources, we can better understand the complex and often contradictory values of Dutch society, and how art both reflected and shaped those values. Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so understanding the social context is vital to understanding the art itself.