From the beginningOriginally, the region that spawned a giant trading community was an inhospitable patchwork of lakes, swamps and peat, at or below sea level; its contours shifted with the autumn storms and floods. The oldest archaeological finds here date from Roman times, when the IJ river lay along the northern border of the Roman Empire. Too busy elsewhere, and no doubt put off by the mushy conditions, the Romans left practically no evidence of settlement.
Isolated farming communities tamed the marshlands with ditches and dykes. Between 1150 and 1300 the south bank of the IJ was dyked from the Zuiderzee westwards to Haarlem. Around 1200, a fishing community known as Aemstelredamme – ‘the dam built across the Amstel’ – emerged at what is now the Dam. On 27 October 1275, the count of Holland waived tolls for those who lived around the Amstel dam, allowing locals to pass the locks and bridges of Holland free of charge, and the town of Amsterdam was born.
1150–1300 - Dams are built to retain the IJ river between the Zuiderzee and Haarlem. A tiny community of herring fishermen settles on the banks of the Amstel river.
1220 - A barrier dubbed ‘the Dam’ is built at the mouth of the Amstel river to control the tidal waters of the Zuiderzee.
1275 - Amsterdam is founded after the count of Holland grants toll-free status to residents along the Amstel. The city gains its first direct access to the ocean via the Zuiderzee, now the IJsselmeer.
1380 - Canals of the present-day Medieval Centre are dug. Amsterdam flourishes, winning control over the sea trade in Scandinavia and later gaining free access to the Baltic, breaking the Hansa monopoly.
1452 - Fire devours the timber frames and thatch of central Amsterdam. New building laws decree that only brick and tile be used in future.
1519 - Spain’s Charles V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor. Treaties and dynastic marriages make Amsterdam part of the Spanish empire, with Catholicism the main faith. Protestants are tolerated in Amsterdam.
1535 - A group of naked Anabaptists (motto: ‘Truth is Naked’) occupies Amsterdam’s city hall, but are defeated by the city watch in fierce battle and brutally executed.
1566–68 - The Low Countries revolt against a lack of religious freedom and the repressive acts of Philip II of Spain, launching the 80 years’ war. In Friesland the rebels win their first battle, which would be immortalised in the Dutch national anthem.
1578 - Amsterdam is captured in a bloodless coup by fanatic Calvinist brigands, known as watergeuzen (sea beggars). A Dutch republic made up of seven provinces is declared a year later, led by William the Silent.
1618 - The world’s first regular newspaper, the trade-oriented Courante uyt Italien, Duytslandt, &c., is printed in Amsterdam, already a publishing centre of maps, atlases and sea charts. Catholicism is outlawed, though clandestine worship is permitted.
1688 - William III of Orange repels the French with the help of Austria, Spain and Brandenburg (Prussia); William then invades England, where he and his wife, Mary Stuart, are proclaimed king and queen.
1795 - French troops occupy the Netherlands and install the Batavian Republic, named after the Batavi tribe that rebelled against Roman rule in AD 69. The fragmented United Provinces become a centralised state, with Amsterdam as its capital.
1813–14 - The French are overthrown, and William VI of Orange is crowned as Dutch king William I. The Austrians relinquish their claims to the southern provinces, and the north and south are joined as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
1830 - With French help the southern provinces secede to form the Kingdom of Belgium. The country is not formally recognised by the Dutch government until 1839.
1865–76 - A period of rapid economic and social change. The North Sea Canal is dug, the Dutch railway system expanded and socialist principles of government are established.
1914–20 - The Netherlands remains neutral in WWI. Food shortages cripple the country, leading to strikes, unrest and growing support for the Dutch Communist Party.
1940 - Germany invades the Netherlands. Rotterdam is destroyed by the Luftwaffe, but Amsterdam suffers only minor damage before capitulating. Queen Wilhemina sets up a Dutch exile government in London.
1944–45 - The Allies liberate the southern Netherlands, but the north and west of the country are cut off from supplies. Thousands of Dutch perish in the bitter ‘Hunger Winter’.
1975 - The Netherlands’ drugs laws distinguish soft from hard drugs; possession of small amounts of marijuana is decriminalised. The Nieuwmarkt district becomes a battleground for squatters and police over the construction of the metro.
1980 - Queen Beatrix's investiture is disrupted by a smoke bomb and riot on the Dam. The term ‘proletarian shopping’ (ie looting) enters the national lexicon.
2001 - Same-sex marriage is legalised in the Netherlands, the first country in the world to do so. In the next few years Belgium, Spain, Canada and South Africa follow suit.
2002 - Leading politician Pim Fortuyn, a hard-liner on immigration and integration, is assassinated. The ruling Dutch parties shift to the right after suffering major losses in the national election.
2004 - Activist filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a fierce critic of Islam, is assassinated, touching off intense debate over the limits of Dutch multicultural society.
2006 - The ruling coalition falls on a no-confidence motion against the immigration minister. After a see-saw election campaign the CDA is confirmed as the largest party, and Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende forms his fourth cabinet.
Early tradeFarming was tricky on the marshland, and with the sea on the doorstep, early residents turned to fishing. But it was commercial trade that would put Holland on the map. While powerful city-states focused on overland trade with Flanders and northern Italy, Amsterdam levelled its sights on the maritime routes. The big prizes were the North and Baltic seas, in the backyard of the powerful Hanseatic League, a group of German trading cities.
Ignoring the league, Amsterdam’s clever vrijbuiters (booty-chasers) sailed right into the Baltic, their holds full of cloth and salt to exchange for grain and timber. It was nothing short of a coup. By the late 1400s, nearly two-thirds of ships sailing to and from the Baltic Sea were from Holland, mostly based in Amsterdam.
Already strained to capacity, the original harbour on the Damrak and Rokin was extended north into the IJ river, near what is now Centraal Station. Canals were dug to the warehouses in today’s Medieval Centre. By this time sailors, merchants, artisans and opportunists from the Low Countries (roughly present-day Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) made their living here.
At the time, Amsterdam was unfettered by the key structures of other European societies. With no tradition of Church-sanctioned feudal relationships, no distinction between nobility and serfs, and hardly any taxation, a society of individualism and capitalism slowly took root.
Independent republicMore than being about religion, the Protestant Reformation was also a classic power struggle between the ‘new money’, an emerging class of merchants and artisans, and the ‘old money’, the land-owning, aristocratic order sanctioned by the established Catholic Church.
The Protestantism that took hold in the Low Countries was its most radically moralistic stream, known as Calvinism. It stressed the might of God and treated humans as sinful creatures whose duty in life was sobriety and hard work. The Calvinists stood for local decision-making – a sign of things to come in Dutch ‘polder’ society – and had a disdain for the top-down hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
Calvinism was a key to the struggle for independence from King Philip II of Spain. Philip, a fanatically devout Catholic, had acquired the Low Countries in something of a horse trade with Austria. His efforts to introduce the Spanish Inquisition, centralise government and levy taxes enraged his subjects and, even worse, awoke a sense of national pride. After 80 years of rebellion, the Spanish finally threw in the towel and signed the Peace Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.
With mighty Amsterdam on their side, the seven northern provinces declared themselves to be an independent republic, led by William the Silent, the seed that grew into today’s royal family. (He was dubbed ‘the Silent’ because he wisely refused to enter into religious debate.) The Seven United Provinces became known to the outside world as the Dutch Republic – or simply ‘Holland’ because that province dominated. Within Holland, Amsterdam towered over all the other cities put together.
Golden Age (1580–1700)Amsterdam grew rapidly. In the 1580s, land was reclaimed from the IJ and Amstel to create the present Nieuwmarkt district. Two decades later, work began on the Canal Belt that more than tripled the city’s area.
By 1600, Dutch ships controlled the sea trade between England, France, Spain and the Baltic, and had a virtual monopoly on North Sea fishing and Arctic whaling. Jewish refugees taught Dutch mariners about trade routes, giving rise to the legendary United East India and West India Companies. Tiny Holland burned brightly; for a while it ran rings around the fleets of great powers, which were too slow or cumbersome to react.
Amsterdam’s fortunes rose when Antwerp, its major trading rival in the Low Countries, was retaken by the Spaniards. Half the population of Antwerp fled, and merchants, skippers and artisans flocked to Amsterdam, bringing entire industries with them such as printing and silk-weaving. Persecuted Jews were welcomed from Portugal and Spain, and Germany proved a ready source of sailors and labourers. Later, a second wave of Jews arrived from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as persecuted Huguenots from France. In the absence of an overriding religion, ethnic background or political entity, money reigned supreme.
By 1620, Dutch traders were exploring the far corners of the earth. They rounded the tip of South America, naming it Cape Horn after the city of Hoorn, north of Amsterdam. They expelled the Portuguese from the Moluccas, also known as the Spice Islands, in present-day Indonesia, and set up outposts in the Pacific and Americas. By 1641 the Dutch had taken control of Formosa and garnered sole trading rights with Japan.
Their good luck continued, and in 1652, Dutch sailors captured the Cape of Good Hope and booted the Portuguese out of Ceylon soon after. They also explored the coastlines of New Zealand, named after the Dutch province of Zeeland and New Holland (now Australia), but found nothing of value there.
By this point the Dutch had more seagoing merchant vessels than England and France combined. Half of all ships sailing between Europe and Asia belonged to the Hollanders, and exotic products became commodities – coffee, tea, spices, tobacco, cotton, silk and porcelain. Amsterdam became home to Europe’s largest ship-building industry, and as wages remained low, investment capital flowed in.
In 1651 England passed the first of several Navigation Acts that posed a serious threat to Dutch trade, leading to several thorny, inconclusive wars on the seas. Its competitors sussed out Holland’s trade secrets, regrouped, and reconquered the sea routes. In one nasty encounter, the Dutch lost the colony of New Amsterdam (New York City) to the British. Louis XIV of France seized the opportunity to invade the Low Countries two decades later, and the few short decades of prosperity known as Golden Age ended.
Wealthy decline (1700–1814)While the Dutch Republic didn’t have the resources to fight France and England head-on, it had Amsterdam’s money to buy them off and ensure freedom of the seas.
As the costs mounted, Amsterdam went from being a place where everything (profitable) was possible, to a lethargic community where wealth creation was a matter of interest rates. Gone were the daring sea voyages, achievements in art, science and technology, the innovations of government and finance. Ports such as London and Hamburg became powerful rivals.
The decline in trade brought poverty, and exceptionally cold winters hampered transport and led to serious food shortages. The winters of 1740 and 1763 were so severe that some residents froze to death.
Amsterdam’s support of the American War of Independence (1776) resulted in a British blockade of the Dutch coast followed by British conquests of Dutch trading posts around the world, forcing the closure of the West India and East India Companies.
In 1794 the French revolutionary troops invaded the Low Countries. The Dutch Republic became a monarchy in 1806, when Napoleon nominated his brother Louis Napoleon as king. Two years later the grand city hall on the Dam, symbol of Dutch merchant wealth and power, was made his palace (now the Royal Palace). Napoleon soon dismissed his brother and annexed Holland into the French Empire.
Britain responded by blockading the Continent and occupying the Dutch colonies. Amsterdam’s great trade and fishing industries ground to a halt, and people turned increasingly to agriculture for a living. Holland’s commercial hub quickly became a sleepy market town.
After Napoleon’s defeat in 1813, Amsterdam’s trade with the world recovered only slowly; domination of the seas now belonged to the British.
New infrastructure (1814–1918)Amsterdam in the first half of the 19th century was an uninspiring place. Its harbour had been neglected, and the sandbanks in the IJ proved too great a barrier for modern ships. Rotterdam was set to become the country’s premier port.
Things began to look up as the country’s first railway, between Amsterdam and Haarlem, opened in 1839. Trade with the East Indies was the backbone of Amsterdam’s economy, and a canal, later extended to the Rhine, helped the city to benefit from the Industrial Revolution underway in Europe.
The diamond industry boomed after the discovery of diamonds in South Africa. Amsterdam again attracted immigrants, and its population doubled in the second half of the 19th century. Speculators hastily erected new housing beyond the Canal Belt – dreary, shoddily built tenement blocks.
In 1889 the Centraal Station was built on several artificial islands in the IJ, seen as a symbolic severing of Amsterdam’s historical ties with the sea. Towards the end of the 19th century, some of the city’s waterways and canals were filled in for hygienic reasons (such as cholera epidemics) and to create roads.
The Netherlands remained neutral in WWI, but Amsterdam’s trade with the East Indies suffered from naval blockades. There were riots over food shortages. An attempt to bring the socialist revolution to the Netherlands was put down by loyalist troops.
Boom & depression (1918–40)After the war, Amsterdam remained the country’s industrial centre. The Dutch Shipbuilding Company operated the world’s second-largest wharf and helped carry a large steel and diesel-motor industry. The harbour handled tropical produce that was processed locally, such as tobacco and cocoa; today, Amsterdam is still the world’s biggest centre for cocoa distribution.
The 1920s were boom years. KLM (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij; Royal Aviation Company) began the world’s first regular air service in 1920 between Amsterdam and London, from an airstrip south of the city, and bought many of its planes from Anthony Fokker’s factory north of the IJ. There were two huge breweries, a sizable clothing industry and even a local car factory. The city hosted the Olympic Games in 1928.
The world Depression in the 1930s hit Amsterdam hard. Make-work projects did little to defuse the mounting tensions between socialists, communists and a small but vocal party of Dutch fascists. The city took in 25,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Germany; a shamefully large number were turned back at the border because of the country’s neutrality policy.
WWII (1940–45)The Netherlands tried to remain neutral in WWII, but Germany invaded in May 1940. For the first time in almost 400 years, Amsterdammers experienced war first-hand.
Few wanted to believe that things would turn really nasty (the Germans, after all, had trumpeted that the Dutch were of the ‘Aryan brotherhood’). However, in February 1941, dockworkers led a protest strike over the treatment of Jews, commemorated as the ‘February Strike’. By then, however, it was already too late. Only one in every 16 of Amsterdam’s 90,000 Jews survived the war – one in seven in the Netherlands – the lowest proportion of anywhere in Western Europe.
The Dutch Resistance, set up by an unlikely alliance of Calvinists and Communists, only became large-scale when the increasingly desperate Germans began to round up able-bodied men to work in Germany.
Towards the end of the war, the situation in Amsterdam was dire. Coal shipments ceased, many men aged between 17 and 50 had gone into hiding or to work in Germany, public utilities halted, and the Germans began to plunder anything that could assist their war effort. Thousands of lives were lost to severe cold and famine. Canadian troops finally liberated the city in May 1945, in the final days of the war in Europe.
Post-war growth (1945–62)The city’s growth resumed after the war, with US aid through the Marshall Plan. Newly discovered fields of natural gas compensated for the loss of the East Indies, which became independent Indonesia after a four-year fight. The focus of the harbour moved west towards the widened North Sea Canal. The long-awaited Amsterdam–Rhine Canal opened in 1952.
Massive apartment blocks arose in areas annexed west of the city to meet the continued demand for housing, made more acute by the demographic shift away from extended families. The massive Bijlmermeer housing project (now called the Bijlmer) southeast of the city, begun in the mid-1960s and finished in the 1970s, was built in a similar vein.
Cultural revolution (1962–82)Over the 80 years leading to the 1960s, Dutch society had become characterised by verzuiling (pillarisation), a social order in which each religion and political persuasion achieved the right to do its own thing, with its own institutions. Each persuasion represented a pillar that supported the status quo in a general ‘agreement to disagree’. In the 1960s the old divisions were increasingly irrelevant, and the pillars came tumbling down, but not the philosophy that it spawned.
Amsterdam became Europe’s ‘Magic Centre’, an exciting place where almost anything was possible. The late 1960s saw an influx of hippies smoking dope on the Dam, sleeping in the Vondelpark and tripping in the nightlife hot spots. At the universities, students demanded a greater say and, in 1969, occupied the administrative centre of the University of Amsterdam. The women’s movement began a campaign that fuelled the abortion debate.
In the 1970s a housing shortage fuelled speculation. Free-market rents – and purchase prices – shot out of reach of the average citizen. Many young people turned to squatting in buildings left empty by (assumed) speculators. Legislation made eviction difficult, giving rise to knokploegen (fighting groups) of tracksuited heavies sent by owners to evict squatters by force. These new squatters, however, defended themselves with barricades and a well-organised support network.
‘Ordinary’ Amsterdammers, initially sympathetic towards the housing shortage, became fed up with the squatters, and by the mid-1980s, the movement was all but dead. Squatting still takes place now, but the rules are clear and the mood is far less confrontational.
New consensus (1982–2000)Twenty years after the cultural revolution began, a new consensus, epitomised by the amiable mayor, Ed van Thijn, emphasised a decentralised government. Neighbourhood councils were established with the goal of creating a more liveable city: integrating work, schools and shops within walking or cycling distance; decreased traffic; renovation rather than demolition; friendly neighbourhood police; a practical, nonmoralistic approach towards drugs; and legal recognition of homosexual couples. Social-housing construction peaked, with 40,000 affordable apartments easing the plight of 100,000 house hunters.
A combined city hall and opera house opened in 1986 on Waterlooplein, although opinions remain divided on its architectural success. Today it’s known as the Stopera – a contraction of stadhuis (city hall) and opera, or of ‘Stop the Opera’ to its detractors.
By the early 1990s, families and small manufacturers, which dominated inner-city neighbourhoods in the early 1960s, had been replaced by professionals and a service industry of pubs, ‘coffeeshops’, restaurants and hotels. The ethnic make-up had changed too, with non-Dutch nationalities comprising over 45% of the population. The city’s success in attracting large foreign businesses resulted in an influx of higher-income expats.
Testing times (2001–present)The first years of the new century have been ones of darkness and light for Amsterdam. After smouldering for years, a noisy debate erupted over the Netherlands’ policy towards newcomers, which quickly led to a tightening of immigration laws. The limits of tolerance, a core value of Dutch identity, were called into question. Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing politician, declared the country ‘full’ before being assassinated in 2002.
Social tensions flared in the wake of the Fortuyn murder, and the atmosphere darkened further as the Netherlands slid into recession following 9/11. The number of people leaving the country reached a 50-year high, albeit most departed for economic and family reasons. The mood was edgy, like a cauldron about to boil over.
It finally did in the autumn of 2004, when the filmmaker Theo van Gogh – known for his anti-Muslim views – was brutally murdered on an Amsterdam street. In a city famous for tolerance of other cultures, what did it mean that a native Amsterdammer, albeit of foreign descent, was behind this crime?
The leading political parties in the Netherlands responded with a big shift to the right. Many Dutch pondered whether immigrants were trying to force the traditions of their home countries onto the Netherlands. A poll in 2005 found that a majority of Dutch citizens favoured the banning of Islamic head scarves for public servants. The flow of immigrants has slowed to a trickle, yet more than 4% of the national population is still without Dutch nationality.
The clouds began to part in 2006. With immigration slowed, a sense of normalcy returned to everyday life, and the Dutch turned their sights to familiar issues such as health care and social services. Tourism and the economy have picked up, flashy new developments have sprung up around the perimeters of the city, and a new metro (underground) line is under construction from Amsterdam-Noord to the city’s World Trade Centre. For the first time in years, according to local polls, the majority of Amsterdam’s residents are happy with their jobs and have cause for optimism.
PaintingWith a line-up that includes Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Jan Vermeer, the Dutch Masters are some of world’s best-known painters. Understanding them requires a bit of history, with roots going back to a time when Italy was the centre of the art world and painters would go there to study.
Flemish & Dutch SchoolsPrior to the late 16th century, when Belgium was still part of the Low Countries, art focused on the Flemish cities of Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp. Paintings of the Flemish School featured biblical and allegorical subject matter popular with the Church, the court and to a lesser extent the nobility, who, after all, paid the bills and called the shots.
Among the most famous names of the era are Jan van Eyck (1385/90–1441), the founder of the Flemish School who was the first to perfect the technique of oil painting; Rogier van der Weyden (1400–64), whose religious portraits showed the personalities of his subjects; and Hieronymus (also known as Jeroen) Bosch (1450–1516), with macabre allegorical paintings full of religious topics. Pieter Breugel the Elder (1525–69) used Flemish landscapes and peasant life in his allegorical scenes.
In the northern Low Countries, artists began to develop a style of their own. Although the artists of the day never achieved the level of recognition of their Flemish counterparts, the Dutch School, as it came to be called, was known for favouring realism over allegory. Haarlem was the centre of this movement, with artists such as Jan Mostaert (1475–1555), Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533) and Jan van Scorel (1494–1562). Painters in the city of Utrecht were famous for using chiaroscuro (deep contrast of light and shade), a technique associated with the Italian master Caravaggio.
Golden Age (17th Century)When the Spanish were expelled from the Low Countries, the character of the art market changed. There was no longer the Church to buy artworks and no court to speak of, so art became a business, and artists were forced to survive in a free market – how very Dutch. In place of Church and court emerged a new, bourgeois society of merchants, artisans and shopkeepers who didn’t mind spending money to brighten up their houses and workplaces. The key: they had to be pictures the buyers could relate to.
Painters became entrepreneurs in their own right, churning out banal works, copies and masterpieces in factory-like studios. Paintings were mass-produced, sold at markets alongside furniture and chickens. Soon the wealthiest households were covered in paintings from top to bottom. Foreign visitors commented that even bakeries and butcher shops seemed to have a painting or two on the wall. Most painters specialised in one of the main genres of the day.
Then there was Rembrandt van Rijn, who defied easy classification. The greatest and most versatile of 17th-century artists, he excelled in all artistic categories. Sometimes he was centuries ahead of his time, particularly with the emotive brush strokes of his later works.
Another great painter of this period, Frans Hals (1581/85–1666), was born in Antwerp but lived in Haarlem, just west of Amsterdam. He devoted most of his career to portraits, dabbling in occasional genre scenes with dramatic chiaroscuro. His ability to capture his subjects’ expressions was equal to Rembrandt’s, though he didn’t explore their characters as much. Both masters used the same expressive, unpolished brush strokes and their styles went from bright exuberance in their early careers to dark and solemn later on. Hals’ work was also admired by the 19th-century Impressionists. In fact, his The Merry Drinker (1630) in the Rijksmuseum’s collection, with its bold brush strokes, could almost have been painted by an Impressionist.
Hals also specialised in beautiful group portraits in which the participants were depicted in almost natural poses, unlike the rigid line-ups produced by lesser contemporaries – though he wasn’t as cavalier as Rembrandt in subordinating faces to the composition. A good example is the pair of paintings known collectively as The Regents & the Regentesses of the Old Men’s Alms House (1664) in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. It was a space Hals knew intimately; he lived in that almshouse, and now it’s the museum.
The grand trio of 17th-century masters is completed by Johannes (also known as Jan) Vermeer (1632–75) of Delft. He produced only 35 meticulously crafted paintings in his career and died poor with 10 children; his baker accepted two paintings from his wife as payment for a debt of more than 600 guilders. Yet Vermeer mastered genre painting like no other artist. His paintings include historical and biblical scenes from his earlier career, his famous View of Delft (1661) in the Mauritshuisin Den Haag, and some tender portraits of unknown women, such as the stunningly beautiful Girl with a Pearl Earring (1666), also in the Mauritshuis.
Vermeer’s work is known for serene light pouring through tall windows. The calm, spiritual effect is enhanced by dark blues, deep reds, warm yellows and supremely balanced composition. Good examples include the Rijksmuseum’s The Kitchen Maid (also known as The Milkmaid, 1658) and Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (1664), or, for his use of perspective, The Love Letter (1670). The Little Street(1658) in the Rijksmuseum’s collection is Vermeer’s only street scene.
Around the middle of the century, the focus on mood and subtle play of light began to make way for the splendour of the baroque. Jacob van Ruysdael (c 1628–82) went for dramatic skies and Albert Cuyp (1620–91) for Italianate landscapes. Van Ruysdael’s pupil Meindert Hobbemapreferred less heroic, more playful scenes full of pretty bucolic detail. (Note that Cuyp, Hobbema and Ruysdael all have main streets named after them in the Old South and De Pijp districts, and many smaller streets here are named after other Dutch artists.)
The genre paintings of Jan Steen (1626–79) show the almost frivolous aspect of baroque. Steen was also a tavern-keeper, and his depictions of domestic chaos led to the Dutch expression ‘a Jan Steen household’. A good example is the animated revelry of The Merry Family (1668) in the Rijksmuseum; it shows adults having a good time around the dinner table, oblivious to the children in the foreground pouring themselves a drink.
18th & 19th centuriesThe Golden Age of Dutch painting ended almost as suddenly as it began, when the French invaded the Low Countries in 1672. The economy collapsed and the market for paintings went south with it. Painters who stayed in business concentrated on ‘safe’ works that repeated earlier successes. In the 18th century they copied French styles, pandering to the awe for anything French.
The results were competent but not ground-breaking. Cornelis Troost (1697–1750) was one of the best genre painters, sometimes compared to the British artist William Hogarth (1697–1764) for his satirical as well as sensitive portraits of ordinary people; Troost, too, introduced scenes of domestic revelry into his pastels.
Gerard de Lairesse (1640–1711) and Jacob de Wit (1695–1754) specialised in decorating the walls and ceilings of buildings – de Wit’s trompe l’oeil decorations (painted illusions that look real) in the Theater Instituut Nederland and Bijbels Museum are worth seeing.
The late 18th century and most of the 19th century produced little of note, save for the landscapes and seascapes of Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819–91) and the gritty, almost photographic Amsterdam scenes of George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923). They appear to have inspired French Impressionists, many of whom visited Amsterdam.
Jongkind and Breitner reinvented 17th-century realism and influenced the Hague School of the last decades of the 19th century. Painters such as Hendrik Mesdag (1831–1915), Jozef Israels (1824–1911) and the three Maris brothers (Jacob, Matthijs and Willem) created landscapes, seascapes and genre works, including the impressive Panorama Mesdag (1881), a gigantic, 360-degree cylindrical painting of the seaside town of Scheveningen viewed from a dune.
Without a doubt, the greatest 19th-century Dutch painter was Vincent van Gogh (1853–90), whose convulsive patterns and furious colours were in a world of their own and still defy comfortable categorisation. (A post-Impressionist? A forerunner of Expressionism?) For more about his life and works, see the Van Gogh Museum.
De StijlIn his early career, Piet Mondriaan (1872–1944) – he dropped the second ‘a’ in his name when he moved to Paris in 1910 – painted in the Hague School tradition, but after flirting with Cubism he began working with bold rectangular patterns, using only the three primary colours (yellow, blue and red) set against the three neutrals (white, grey and black). He named this style ‘neo-Plasticism’ and viewed it as an undistorted expression of reality in pure form and pure colour. His Composition in Red, Black, Blue, Yellow & Grey (1920), in the Stedelijk Museum’s collection, is an elaborate example.
Mondriaan’s later works were more stark (or ‘pure’) and became dynamic again when he moved to New York in 1940. The world’s largest collection of his paintings resides in the Gemeentemuseum (Municipal Museum) in his native Den Haag.
The famously strict artist was one of the leading exponents of De Stijl (The Style), a Dutch design movement that aimed to harmonise all the arts by bringing artistic expressions back to their essence. Its advocate was the magazine of the same name, first published in 1917 by Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931). Van Doesburg produced works similar to Mondriaan’s, though he dispensed with the thick, black lines and later tilted his rectangles at 45 degrees, departures serious enough for Mondriaan to call off the friendship.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, De Stijl also attracted sculptors, poets, architects and designers. One of these was Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964), designer of the Van Gogh Museum and several other buildings, but best known internationally for his furniture, such as the Red Blue Chair (1918) and his range of uncomfortable zigzag seats that, viewed side-on, formed a ‘Z’ with a backrest.
One of the most remarkable graphic artists of the 20th century was Maurits Cornelis Escher (1902–72). His drawings, lithos and woodcuts of blatantly impossible images continue to fascinate mathematicians: a waterfall feeds itself; people go up and down a staircase that ends where it starts; a pair of hands draw each other. You can see his work at Escher in het Paleis in Den Haag.
Cobra & beyondAfter WWII, artists rebelled against artistic conventions and vented their rage in abstract expressionism. In Amsterdam, Karel Appel (1921–) and Constant (Constant Nieuwenhuis, 1920–2005) drew on styles pioneered by Paul Klee and Joan Miró, and exploited bright colours and ‘uncorrupted’ children’s art to produce lively works that leapt off the canvas. In Paris in 1945 they met up with the Danish Asger Jorn (1914–73) and the Belgian Corneille (Cornelis van Beverloo, 1922–), and together with several other artists and writers formed a group known as CoBrA (COpenhagen, BRussels, Amsterdam). It’s been called the last great avant-garde movement.
Their first major exhibition, in the Stedelijk Museum in 1949, aroused a storm of protest (‘My child paints like that too’). Still, the CoBrA artists exerted a strong influence in their respective countries even after they disbanded in 1951. The CoBrA Museum in Amstelveen displays a good range of their works, including colourful ceramics.
Contemporary Dutch artists are usually well represented at international events such as the Biennale in Venice and the Documenta in Kassel. Look out for the installations of Jan Dibbets (1941–) and Ger van Elk (1941–), who mix photography, painting and sculpture, as well as the wry graphic illustrations of Marthe Röling (1939–). Among the younger generation, the artist duo Liet Heringa (1966–) and Van Kalsbeek (1962–) are known for their moody, free-form sculptures, Michael Raedecker (1963–) for his dreamy, radiant still lifes, Roger Braun (1972–) for industrial realism and Melvin Moti (1977–) for films of spookily lit objects (think exploding soap bubbles).
PhotographyFor obvious reasons photography does not have the history of painting in Amsterdam, but what it lacks in longitude it makes up for in latitude. The area of the Jordaan around the Elandsgracht brims with photography studios and small galleries, while the museums FOAM and Huis Marseille specialise in photography.
Portraiture is a major theme of contemporary Dutch photography. The most famous living photographer from the Netherlands is probably Anton Corbijn (1955–), known for his portraits of celebrities and musicians such as Naomi Campbell, Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese, often in his trademark grainy black-and-white.
Rineke Dijkstra (1959–) creates unflinching head-on portraits, both analytical and empathetic, of common people such as soldiers carrying rifles and folks in bathing suits on the beach. Hellen van Meene’s (1972–) portraits are more intimate, such as a series commissioned by the New York Times featuring pubescent Japanese girls, innocent with a tinge of eroticism. Inez van Lamsweerde (1963–) and Vinoodh Matadin (1961–), both born and educated in Amsterdam, create shots for exhibitions and advertising campaigns, at turns grim and glamorous.
Amsterdam-based Aernout Mik (1962–) has exhibited in Europe and North America with film installations known for their combining of studies in group dynamics with a sculptor’s sense of space. Marijke van Warmerdam (1959–), based in Amsterdam and New York, creates absurdist loops of everyday life in repeating sequences – eg the Japanese technique of bowing.
MusicThe dour church elders began to allow organ music in churches in the 17th century, as it kept people out of pubs. With the possible exception of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621), an organ player in the Oude Kerk with an international reputation as a composer and a strong following in Germany, Amsterdam has contributed relatively little to the world’s music heritage.
Today, however, the world’s top acts appear here regularly and local musicians excel in (modern) classical music, jazz and techno/dance. In summer, free jazz, classical and world-music performances are staged in the Vondelpark, and free lunch-time concerts are held at various venues throughout the year. The Uitmarkt festival at the end of August also provides lots of free music. For more about music venues check the free entertainment papers for details.
ClassicalThe Netherlands has orchestras in cities throughout the country, but Amsterdam’s Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra) towers over them all, not least because of the near-perfect acoustics of its winning concert hall, the Concertgebouw. The orchestra’s director since 2004 is Mariss Jansons, whose long list of credentials includes the Pittsburgh Symphony. The orchestra also frequently performs abroad, matching works by famous composers with little-known gems of the modern era. If you’re looking to catch one of the top-flight soloists in the world, head here first.
The Concertgebouw is only one of several venues in town for classical music. Chamber music plays in the Beurs van Berlage, and very often the city’s extant or converted churches host concerts. Check listings.
If you’re looking for Dutch home-grown talent, you can hardly do better than the mop-topped pianist Ronald Brautigam, who has performed around the country and all over the world. Violinist-violist Isabelle van Keulen founded her own chamber music festival in Delft, and brings in the crowds wherever she appears. The country’s leading cellist is Pieter Wispelwey, known for his fiery temperament and a challenging repertoire.
Pianist Wibi Soerjadi is one of the country’s most successful classical musicians, famous for his sparkling interpretations of romantic works and his Javanese-prince looks. Soerjadi recently played a concert during a state visit of Queen Beatrix to Slovakia. Soprano Charlotte Margiono is known for her interpretations of Le Nozze de Figaro and The Magic Flute. Mezzo-soprano Jard van Nes has a giant reputation for her solo parts in Mahler’s symphonies.
For ‘old music’ you shouldn’t miss the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, concentrating on the music of the 17th and 18th centuries (Bach, Vivaldi and Handel; venues vary). The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (ABO) and Choir, conducted by Ton Koopman, tackled an enormous task of recording all existing cantatas of JS Bach. The ABO tours internationally but, when home, can often be seen performing at the Concertgebouw. Koopman also conducts the Radio Chamber Orchestra and guest conducts with orchestras worldwide.
Performances by the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra are often recorded for radio and TV; one of its former artistic directors, Frans Brüggen, also works with the Orchestra on 18th-century pieces.
The Nederlandse Opera is based in the Stopera (officially called the Muziektheater), where it stages world-class performances, though its forays into experimental fare stir up the inevitable controversy.
Modern classical & experimentalThe new Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ is the venue for this sort of work which seems to thrive in Amsterdam. This iconic building occupies a prime spot on the waterside, near the Passenger Ship Terminal.
Dutch modern composers include Michel van der Aa, Louis Andriessen, Theo Loevendie, Merlijn Twaalfhoven, Klaas de Vries and the late Ton de Leeuw. Worthwhile performers include the Trio, Asko Ensemble, Ives Ensemble, Nederlands Kamerkoor, Nieuw Ensemble, the Mondriaan Kwartet and the Schönberg Quartet.
JazzThe Dutch jazz scene has produced some mainstream artists in recent years. Among gifted young chanteuses are Fleurine, Ilse Huizinga and the Suriname-born Denise Jannah, who records for Blue Note and is widely recognised as the country’s best jazz singer. Jannah’s repertoire consists of American standards with elements of Surinamese music.
Astrid Seriese and Carmen Gomez operate in the crossover field, where jazz verges on, or blends with, pop. Father and daughter Hans and Candy Dulfer, tenor and alto saxophonists respectively, are a bit more daring. Dad, in particular, constantly extends his musical boundaries by experimenting with sampling techniques drawn from the hip-hop genre. Candy is better known internationally, thanks to her performances with Prince, Van Morrison and Pink Floyd, among others, which have introduced her to a wide audience.
Trumpeter and Jordaan native Saskia Laroo mixes jazz with dance, but still earns respect in traditional circles. Other leading jazzers are bass player Hein van de Geyn, guitarist Jesse van Ruller and pianist Michiel Borstlap, winner of the Thelonius Monk award. Borstlap was commissioned by the Emir of Qatar to write the world’s first opera in Arabic.
An effervescent soloist on the flute is Peter Guidi, who set up the jazz programme at the Muziekschool Amsterdam and leads its big band, Jazzmania. Other big bands of renown are the Willem Breuker Kollektief and Contraband, both enjoying a reputation for experimentation.
The most important jazz venue is Bimhuis in the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. A number of smaller clubs congregate in the streets east of the Leidseplein. For the biggest party with the biggest names in tow, check out the North Sea Jazz Festival every summer in Rotterdam.
Pop & rockChances are you’ve heard oldie hits by Dutch bands such as ‘Radar Love’ by Golden Earring, ‘Venus’ by Shocking Blue or ‘Hocus Pocus’ by Jan Akkerman’s Focus. The highest-profile Dutch rock star, Herman Brood, captured punk hearts with His Wild Romance at the end of the ’70s. Later, the Dutch became pioneers in club music, fusing techno and industrial into the dark, hyperactive beat that became known as ‘gabber’.
Nowadays Amsterdam is the pop capital of the Netherlands, and talent is drawn to the city like moths to a flame. It is a major hub of the DJ trade, not just for the Netherlands but for the world. Top names on the international circuit include Tiësto, Armin van Buuren, Marco V and Ferry Corsten. You can find them at venues large and small in town, although tickets sell out fast.
Hot new stars of the pop scene include the Britpop-inspired Moke, singer-songwriter Marike Jager, the punk-jazz group Malkovich as well as those dance-rock mavens, the Melomanics. Among rappers, the popular Moroccan-Dutch artist Ali B has recently teamed up with top-40 singer Marco Borsato, a fixture at pop festivals. Also look out for the Dutch-rapping Osdorp Posse, Brainpower, and Blaxtar.
Some oldie bands still on the circuit include the garagerock outfit Claw Boys Claw, and the pop legends Doe Maar and Tröckener Kecks, who were among the first to break through with lyrics in Dutch, rather than English.
Pop festivals come out of the woodwork in the warmer months: Pinkpop in Landgraaf and the gargantuan Parkpop, which draws around 350,000 ravers to Den Haag. Dance Valley in Spaarnwoude near Amsterdam pulls up to 100 live acts and DJs.
World musicCosmopolitan Amsterdam offers a wealth of world music. Suriname-born Ronald Snijders, a top jazz flautist, is a frequent highlight as is the venerable Chris Hinze, another flautist with an eclectic repertoire that ranges from New Age to Tibetan music.
The bulk of world repertoire from Amsterdam is Latin, ranging from Cuban salsa to Dominican merengue and Argentinean tango. But Fra-Fra-Sound plays jazz and ‘paramaribop’, a contraction of Paramaribo (the capital of Suriname) and bebop. What you’ll hear is traditional Surinamese kaseko, itself a banquet of African, European and American music.
Another intriguing band is Zuco 103, a Dutch–Brazilian outfit that combines bossa nova and samba with DJ rubs on the turntable. It has strong ties with the equally eclectic New Cool Collective, a 19-piece big band that blends jazz with drum‘n’bass and ’60s Go-Go. It recorded a soundtrack for the live-action version of the film The Jungle Book to rave reviews.
Sources to check out while you are in Amsterdam include the foundation Marmoucha (www.marmoucha.nl), which organises 60-odd Moroccan performances a year; Laziz (for Arabian dance music, often at Paradiso), Que Pasa (Spanish ska, reggae and more, often at Melkweg) and Club Mahsen (Turkish dance music, at various locations).
The Amsterdam Roots Festival of world music happens at different locations every year in June, but centres on the Oosterpark – see www.amsterdamroots.nl for details. The Tropeninstituut Theater often hosts non-Western music concerts.
CinemaDutch films haven’t exactly set the world on fire, though this has more to do with the language barrier and funding problems in a modest distribution area than with lack of talent.
In the mid-1990s, the Dutch government introduced tax shelters to encourage private investment in Dutch film, which led to a mini-boom in the industry. Lightweight fare such as Costa! (2001), about Dutch teenagers on holiday in a Spanish resort, recently proved that Dutch films crafted for the domestic audience could be commercially viable. The film spawned copycat films such as Volle Maan (Full Moon) and a TV sitcom.
The best-known Dutch director is Amsterdam-born Paul Verhoeven, who was famous at home long before making Hollywood blockbusters such as Total Recall, Basic Instinct and Starship Troopers. Lately Verhoeven returned to the Netherlands to shoot Black Book, the highest-grossing Dutch film ever.
Look out for screenings at the key film festivals: the Rotterdam International Film Festival in February, Utrecht’s Netherlands Film Festival in September (with the Golden Calf awards, the ‘Dutch Oscars’), and Amsterdam’s excellent International Documentary Film Festival in November. Handily for foreign visitors, movies are rarely ever dubbed into Dutch, but subtitled.
The following is a shortlist of critically acclaimed Dutch films, both contemporary and historical, that afford insights into Dutch society.
Amsterdamned, directed by Dick Maas, 1987. A skin-diving serial killer is chased through Amsterdam’s canals by a detective hampered by his fear of water. Essentially a B-grade thriller pepped up by great shots of Amsterdam.
Antonia (Antonia’s Line), directed by Marleen Gorris, 1995. A strong-willed Dutch woman recalls life in a colourful village where men become increasingly irrelevant. Won an Oscar for best foreign film.
De Aanslag (The Assault), directed by Fons Rademakers, 1986. A physician spends his adult life investigating why his neighbours betrayed his family in WWII. Based on a best-selling novel by renowned author Harry Mulisch, it was nominated for an Academy Award.
De Tweeling (Twin Sisters), directed by Ben Sombogaart, 2004. A touching story of twins separated in the Netherlands and Germany during WWII; nominated for an Oscar.
Fanfare, directed by Bert Haanstra, 1958. Made by one of the greats of Dutch documentary film, this classic satire is about two amateur brass bands vying for a government grant in a small Dutch town.
Interview, directed by Theo van Gogh, 2003. Low-key account of a war correspondent conducting an interview with a soap opera actress. Attracted little attention until after the filmmaker’s death; an American remake was released in 2007.
Shouf Shouf Habibi (Hush Hush Baby), directed by Albert ter Heerdt, 2004. Comedy about a Moroccan family finding its way in Dutch society. Takes a cynical look at the integration issue without taking sides.
Simon, directed by Eddy Terstall, 2004. A complicated friendship develops when a hetero hash dealer hits a gay man with his car. A Golden Calf winner.
Turks Fruit (Turkish Delight), directed by Paul Verhoeven, 1973. A distressed sculptor (Rutger Hauer) picks up numerous women to forget the loss of his wife. The most successful Dutch film of the ’70s, it’s regarded as a modern classic.
Zus & So, directed by Paula van der Oest, 2001. Comedy about three sisters who plot to sabotage the engagement of their gay brother for material gain. Also Oscar-nominated.
Zwartboek (Black Book), directed by Paul Verhoeven, 2006. This action-packed story explores some of the less heroic aspects of the Dutch resistance in WWII. Launched the international career of today’s hottest Dutch actor, Carice van Houten.
TheatreAmsterdam has a rich theatrical tradition dating back to medieval times. In the Golden Age, when Dutch was the language of trade, local companies toured the theatres of Europe with the tragedies of Vondel, the comedies of Bredero and verses of PC Hooft. They’re still performed locally, even if there’s precious little in English translation.
A spin-off of the popular De Dogtroep, Warner & Consorten, stages dialogue-free shows that inject humour into everyday situations and objects, while music is generated with weird materials.
Cosmic deserves special mention for productions reflecting the city’s multicultural communities (Surinamese, Indonesian etc). The comedy scene is led by English-language outfits such as Boom Chicago.
English-language companies often visit Amsterdam, especially in summer. Glitzy musicals play to full houses in the Koninklijk Theater Carré or other large venues.
The Dutch also produce some of the world’s best youth theatre. The delightful puppets of the Marionetten Theater provide classic operas from Mozart, Haydn and Offenbach a fairytale charm.
The Holland Festival, Over Het IJ and the Uitmarkt are big theatre events. Also worth catching is the International Theatre School Festival at the end of June, in the theatres around Nes (Frascati, Brakke Grond etc).
Those who wish to dig deeper can visit the Theatre Museum in the Theater Instituut Nederland.
DanceAmsterdam’s National Ballet (www.het-nationale-ballet.nl) performs mainly classical ballets, but also presents 20th-century works by Dutch choreographers such as Rudi van Dantzig and Toer van Schayk. The Ballet has helped launch the careers of promising dancemasters such as John Wisman and Ted Brandsen, now the artistic director.
The Netherlands is also a world leader in modern dance, and many innovative performances can be seen throughout the year. The troupe of the Nederlands Dans Theater in Den Haag leaps and pirouettes to international audiences.
There are also many smaller modern-dance companies such as Introdans, which can truly be described as poetry in motion. The Holland Festival in June is the main platform for premieres of new shows by top choreographers, while Amsterdam’s Julidans festival in July brings dancers together from all over the world. The International School Festival held in June is devoting more of its programme to dance, and performances are often held in one of the theatres along Nes.
LiteratureThe following books are written by local authors or are set in or near Amsterdam. Of these books originally written in Dutch, all are available in English thanks to the Dutch Literary Production and Translation Fund (www.nlpvf.nl), which propagates Dutch literature abroad.
Amsterdam Cops is a series of detective novels by Janwillem van de Wetering, with tongue firmly in cheek. The author writes every novel such as The Perfidious Parrot twice, in Dutch and English, in order to peg his target audience.
The Diary of Anne Frank is a moving account of a young girl’s thoughts and yearnings while in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam. The book has been translated into 60 languages, and is a fixture of school curricula across the globe.
A Dutchman’s Slight Adventures, by Simon Carmiggelt, is an amusing collection of vignettes about De Pijp from the author’s column in the newspaper Het Parool. Carmiggelt was a master of local colour, often writing his observations from pubs and park benches in Amsterdam.
Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier, explores the conflicts between duty and sexuality. Set in Delft, the story was made into a Hollywood movie starring Colin Firth (as Jan Vermeer) and Scarlett Johansson (as a maid in his employ), and offers insights into a painter’s life in the Golden Age.
The Happy Hooker, by Xaviera Hollander, is a revealing snapshot of the ins and outs of the sex trade. Though it may seem tame now, in the ’70s some countries banned the book for its graphic content.
Lost Paradise, by Cees Nooteboom, is an allegorical tale of angels and humans, of Brazilians in Australia and a literary critic in Austria. One of the Netherlands’ most prolific writers, Nooteboom also wrote The Following Story, winner of the Aristeion European Prize for Literature in 1991.
Parents Worry, by Gerard Reve, is a contemporary classic, a tragicomic novel about a day in the ravaged life of a singer and poet with one hell of a case of writer’s block. Reve, who passed away in 2006, was acknowledged as one of the great 20th-century Dutch authors.
The UnDutchables, by Colin White and Laurie Boucke, is a point of reference for virtually anyone who goes to live in the Netherlands. These two Americans have discovered foibles that many Dutch themselves seem not to recognise.
