Robbert Leusink@robbertleusink
The Dutch Golden Age produced more painters per capita than any civilisation in history
Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Frans Hals were not outliers
They were the visible peak of an entire culture that treated painting as a serious trade
Guilds trained painters the way guilds trained surgeons
Wealthy merchants bought art the way people now buy furniture
The Reformation had just stripped the churches bare
The demand for religious painting collapsed overnight
Dutch painters redirected toward domestic interiors, portraits, landscapes, and still lifes, and produced the most technically accomplished body of secular painting in Western history
The civilisation that lost its sacred art invented a new kind of beauty to replace it