sandr020

No nation was as interested in domestic genre scenes as the post-Reform­ation Dut­ch. The Dutch middle class wan­ted small, realistic im­ages of their own life, im­ag­es where ed­uc­at­ion, explor­at­ion, science, busin­ess and Prot­es­tant vir­tues were honour­ed. In the book  Vermeer’s Hat (2009), Timothy Brook focused on these small, domestic interiors of Delft as shown in eight paintings by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer (1632–75). His work suggested that a study of globalisation should start in the C17th; this would improve our understanding of the complex exchanges that brought the world together in a more integrated economic unit back then. Vermeer,  Officer and Laughing Girl, 1655–60  50 cm x 46 cm, The Frick Collection Starting with the household objects and activities found in Vermeer’s paintings, Brook was interested in viewing trade markets across the world, perhaps parts of the world that C17th Europeans didn’t know much about. He thus uncovered something ...

Bruges (pop 120,000) was founded in the north of Belgium in the C9th by Vikings who settled locally. A town developed around the fort­ress that the Counts of Flanders built in the area and the young settle­ment worked hard to acquire city rights. In fact a very prot­ective city wall was built around Bruges, with solid gates. The settle­ment very quickly became an imp­or­tant har­bour close to the North Sea. Inside the city, the river and canals became the vital communic­ation links. By the C14th Bruges was the starting point of a commercial transport road to the Rhineland; traders from all over came to sell their pro­ducts and to buy Flemish cloth. Markt Place, outdoor coffee shops and sculpture (top) The Beguinage  (second ph oto) Growing from a few North German towns in the late 1100s, the Ger­man Hans­eatic League dominated Baltic maritime trade for three cent­ur­ies along the Northern European coast. Bruges bec­ame a port of even greater importance when it joined the Hanseatic...

When trade with Japan resumed in 1854 after cent­uries of isol­ation­ism and cul­t­ur­al blockade, a craze for its culture swept across France. But the French concept of Japon­is­me was not invented until the early 1870s. Art galleries in Paris were showing Oriental work, shops sold porcelain, lacquer ware, screens, fans and prints for homes, and 1878 World’s Fair showed many Far Eastern treasures to visitors. Van Gogh, Oiran, 105 x 61 cm, 1887.  French artists and designers studied Japanese woodcut prints; the development of modern painting was affect­ed by the woodcuts’ stylis­at­ion, flattened perspectives and brilliant colours. Thanks to Art Eyewitness we can see that French artists like Manet, Monet, Degas and Cassatt were influenced by the relaxed placement of figures and striking coloration in these depictions of Japan’s floating world. Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)’s contact with Japonisme can be seen in his 1884 still-life in which he painted brother Theo’s cloisonné vas...

The cultural and linguistic diversity of Australia's resident population has been reshaped over many years by migration. In 2015, 28.2% of the resident population was born over­seas (6.7 million persons). As would be expected from a major member of the British Commonwealth of nations, the greatest proportion of these migrants came from the United Kingdom (5%) and New Zeal­and (3%). And increasingly, migrants are arriving from China (2.0%), India (2%), the Philippines (1%) and Viet­nam (1%). The fastest rate of increase over this period was for people born in Nepal, Pakistan, Brazil, India and Bang­ladesh. As a result of this diversity, Pauline Hanson 's party,  One Nation,  has arisen as a strongly nationalist, right-wing and populist party in Australia. One Nation was founded in 1997, by then-member of the Conservative Party in Federal parliam­ent, Pauline Hanson. Dis-endorsement came before the 1996 federal election because of comments she made about Indigenous Australians,...