Download or read book The Humour of Holland written by Anonymous and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There appears to be an idea abroad to the effect that the “Humour of Holland” could be most satisfactorily dealt with in a chapter resembling the famous one “Of Snakes in Ireland.” As the average English reader, in the most favourable instances, knows little more of Dutch literature than a name or two (Rembrandt has introduced us to “the poet Vondel,” and if Southey were not so little read in these days Bilderdijk and Cats would not be so unfamiliar), the subject offers a free field to the constructive imagination. Yet even so, one would think it must be obvious that the nation which has produced a Teniers, a Jan Steen, and—in some of his moods—a Rembrandt, could not be entirely destitute of humour. The estimate of its quality may be a question of taste; but—though many people practically do adopt this form of logic—we cannot make the fact of our not finding it to our liking a ground for denying its existence. Of course, before determining what the humour of a nation is like, we need to know what is that nation’s intellectual bent as a whole, and what forces have been at work to determine its character. On this point we may quote a paragraph or two from a Dutch writer, J. H. Hooijer, whom we shall meet again in the course of these pages. He is describing a village in North Holland, in the heart of the fat meadow-lands, famous for the production of Dutch cheeses. “The same village which you find so depressing this November day,—so damp, so clammy, so dripping with water,—makes a very different impression when Spring, with full hands, has showered her blossom-snow over the orchards, or in the autumn, when the trees are hanging full of golden pears or rosy apples. Greener meadow-land is nowhere on earth, unless it be in the Emerald Isle itself. The rich green pastures have velvety lights in the sunshine, and the splendid cattle—their dappled skins smooth and shining as silk—show out to advantage against it—colour on colour. At such times there is a glow of colour in the whole landscape, which, strange as it may sound, reminds one of the South,—a glow one might almost think was stolen from the palettes of the Old Masters. Every breath you draw is perfumed with new milk and flowers, mingled with the salt smell of the sea. There is a fulness of outward life—a bubbling up and overflowing of vital juices,—for which they had an eye and a heart, those great old realists. The man who despises a rich clover pasture, speckled here and there with white-fleeced sheep; who cannot spare a look for the magnificent horned cattle that stand staring at you, with dreamy, half-sad gaze, over the fence, while Geertje’s black eyes flash at you from behind the milking-pail,—well, he need not come to North Holland. Intellects of this sort, exclusively devoted to the contemplation of the sublime, will find everything ugly in these parts. To such an one our Old Masters have nothing to say; for him, Paul Potter’s art is a mere waste of time, and many a racy bit of Vondel trivial nonsense. Happily the cheery sun is of another mind, and his smile falls well-pleased on the endless emerald plain. He nurses it, feeds it, warms it,—he sweetens the blades of grass for the palate of the pampered cow. And sometimes, just before setting, he draws along the horizon, with purple finger, broad streaks of crimson fire, and then the dykes flame out like ruby bands winding over the green velvet robe of the earth, and you wish for the power of wielding the brush, so as to throw on canvas what one might almost call these brutal effects of colour.”
Download or read book The Humaur of Holland written by and published by . This book was released on 1893 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Humour in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age written by R. Dekker and published by Springer. This book was released on 2001-04-03 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The humorous side of Dutch culture of the seventeenth century is obscured by a change that took place around 1670. Religious treatises and books of manners warning against laughter contributed to a new image, that of the humourless, Calvinist Dutch. Mainly based on a manuscript with some two thousand jokes, the lost laughter of the Golden Age is reconstructed and analyzed. Most jokes are crude and obscene, and they throw new light on attitudes towards sexuality, religion and other aspects of life.
Download or read book The UnDutchables written by Colin White and published by White-Boucke Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Humour of Ireland written by David James O'Donoghue and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book My dam Life written by Sean Condon and published by Lonely Planet. This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sean Condon has moved to Amsterdam, he's married, and he and his wife are unemployed. As he explores the strange habits of the Dutch and tries to avoid being deported, Sean also keeps a wonderfully self-deprecating eye on the strange business of writing about yourself and the absurdities of everyday life.
Download or read book The Criminal written by Havelock Ellis and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Growth of the Brain a Study of the Nervous System in Relation to Education written by Henry Herbert Donaldson and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ibsen s Prose Dramas Emperor and Galilean written by Henrik Ibsen and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The New Psychology written by Edward Wheeler Scripture and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Public Opinion written by and published by . This book was released on 1893 with total page 742 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The academy written by and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ashgate Research Companion to Dutch Art of the Seventeenth Century written by Wayne Franits and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the tremendous number of studies produced annually in the field of Dutch art over the last 30 years or so, and the strong contemporary market for works by Dutch masters of the period as well as the public's ongoing fascination with some of its most beloved painters, until now there has been no comprehensive study assessing the state of research in the field. As the first study of its kind, this book is a useful resource for scholars and advanced students of seventeenth-century Dutch art, and also serves as a springboard for further research. Its 19 chapters, divided into three sections and written by a team of internationally renowned art historians, address a wide variety of topics, ranging from those that might be considered "traditional" to others that have only drawn scholarly attention comparatively recently.
Download or read book The Academy and Literature written by and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Atlantic Monthly written by and published by . This book was released on 1894 with total page 922 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Cultural History of Humour written by Jan Bremmer and published by Polity. This book was released on 1997-07-07 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humour is without doubt a vital element of the human condition but it has rarely been the subject of serious historical research. Yet a closer look at jokes and other comic phenomena shows us that the nature of humour changes from one period to another, and that these changes can provide us with important insights into the social and cultural developments of the past. This important and highly original book sets out to explore the terra incognita of humour through the ages - from jokes and stage humour in Greece and Rome to the jestbooks of early modern Europe, from practical jokes in Renaissance Italy to comic painting during the Dutch Golden Age, from Bakhtin's conception of laughter to the joking relationships of anthropologists. These innovative accounts move humour into the centre of social and cultural history and throw an unexpected light on life and manners through the ages.
