Moederstad en vaderland : nationale identiteit en lokale trots in de schilderswereld van het Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (1815-1839)

When the Northern and Southern Netherlands were merged into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815, King William I tried to create national unity. Also in the art world. The North and the South, however, had different cultural traditions and painters often operated at a local level. In ‘Hometown, homeland’ Anna Rademakers describes the artistic developments in the trading cities of Amsterdam and Antwerp and the royal cities of Brussels and The Hague. She examines the differences in art views and the attempts at integration and cooperation at a national level. She also shows how the painters dealt with the Belgian Revolution and the eventual separation of the two parts of the country. By use of contemporary sources such as letters, speeches, newspaper articles and the artworks themselves, ‘Hometown, homeland’ provides a colorful image of cultural life in the early nineteenth century and the extent to which notions such as national identity and national awareness played a role.