The Embarrassment of Riches
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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'Simon Schama has described the tensions between Dutch wealth and Calvinist austerity as an "embarrassment of riches".' --Sholem Stein "One penalty of superabundance then, as now, was drugs - literally, since some of the tobacco, it seems, was sauced with Cannabis sativa, familiar to Dutch travelers in India and the Levant. Drunken stupor, lethargy and drowsiness became a standard topos of much Dutch painting. All this was grist to the regulating morality of the Dutch Reformed Church. Tobacco, spirits, even Brazilian sugar, these were Satan's work. By the 1640's there were already more than 50 sugar refineries in Amsterdam. Today the Dutch still have a peculiarly sweet tooth, munching on waffles, pralines and pancakes - except that dental care is vastly improved." --New York Times review[1] "The seventeenth-century Dutch were perhaps the first to pay for their unprecedented prosperity with their teeth. And we have all been paying the same price ever since." [Harvey and Sheldon Peck, orthodontists, Discover, October 1980]. |
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The Embarrassment of Riches: An interpretation of Dutch culture in the Golden Age (1987) is a book by the historian Simon Schama on overabundance during the Dutch Golden Age. The book is credited today with giving new insights into the Dutch poldermodel system of governance.
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Summary
In his attempt to make a systematic overview of the Dutch Golden Age culture, Schama cites an eclectic list of period source materials from all over the world, including emblem books, period histories and novels, cookbooks, scientific discoveries, bankruptcy files, religious works, and period art including prints, paintings, sculpture, architecture and stained glass windows. He revisits Dutch Golden Age morals, from how they brought up their children, to how they mourned their dead. His conclusion is that through the continuous battle against the waters of the North Sea, the Dutch spirit can be summed up in the motto of Zeeland, scene of many floods from dike breaches, Luctor et Emergo, or I struggle and emerge. The book is easy to read and is more a group of separate essays than a cohesive unit, making it a good candidate for reading in short installments or as a quick reference for various aspects of the subject.
Historiographic background
The history of the Netherlands has long been colored by local histories financed by various institutions and leading families through the ages. There are several discrepancies to be found in period accounts between the various city archives and the archives of other institutions such as Water Boards or the Catholic church. Many archives have been sadly neglected or worse, destroyed by war or as in the case of the Catholic Church, the beeldenstorm. Authors through the centuries have often used materials from predecessors without questioning the original sources, leading to many conflicting statements.
Criticism
Historians in the US and in the Netherlands agreed the book was erudite and offered many fresh insights due to its 360-degree approach to the whole period of the Dutch Golden Age, which Schama defines as being from 1570-1670. A small chain of criticisms did pop up about some of the book's statements, especially those having to do with the politics of the Thirty Years' War, or the economics of the period, but many (especially in the Netherlands) were inspired by his book, including professors of history who wondered like Schama why the Dutch seem so embarrassed about their wealthy past. Herman Pleij, a Dutch professor of Middle Dutch literature was inspired to write a whole book in response, called The Dutch Embarrassment. Susan Buck-Morss criticizes Schama for his "selective national history" of the Dutch Republic, "that omits much or all of the colonizing story." "One would have no idea that Dutch hegemony in the slave trade (replacing Spain and Portugal as major players) contributed substantially to the enormous "overload" of wealth that he describes as becoming so socially and morally problematic during the century of Dutch "centrality" to the "commerce of the world.""
Legacy
Many in the Netherlands were quick to draw the parallel between the relative luxury of the 17th century that Schama admired, to the Dutch welfare state at the close of the 20th century. As the Netherlands disappears into a European melting pot, and in light of the current financial crisis, more attention is being paid to a Canon of Dutch history, and Schama's book has offered new ways of describing the Golden Age period. In many ways, Schama's book today is seen as the first of a series of new historical publications on the Dutch Golden Age.
Translation
It was translated into Dutch (Dutch title: Overvloed en Onbehagen:De Nederlandse cultuur in de Gouden Eeuw) and published there in 1988, where it was also well received.
Selective list of illustrations
- Still-Life in Praise of the Pickled Herring (1656) by Joseph de Bray
- Opening the sluces or Hollands last shift (1794) by Isaac Cruikshank
- Wine Is a Mocker by Hendrik Bary
- Delen paalwerk aangetast door paalwormen (1731) by Jan Ruyter
- Sinnepoppen (1614) by Roemer Visscher
See also
- Christian views on poverty and wealth
- Collective consciousness
- Tulip mania
- Dutch history
- Embarrassment
- Rich
- Thick description
- History from below
- John Lothrop Motley's The Rise of the Dutch Republic
- Johan Huizinga's Dutch Civilisation in the Seventeenth Century
