1/2/2024 0 Comments Flawed notion synonymOne would have to go back to the mists of antiquity, to the Athens of Pericles, to find a comparable example of such wide-ranging development in such a small tract of land.’ The flowering and glory of Florence and Venice seemed to be combined in the Netherlands. ‘It was when extraordinary intellectual development went hand in hand with unparalleled prosperity and rare vigour. It was a competitive pride: the Netherlands was presented as better than all other countries and even as a near-unique marvel in the history of the world: The historian Muller whose words are quoted above was the first writer to use the phrase ‘Golden Age’ to express national pride: pride in the art as well as the military and economic power of this small country. The Golden Age as a Description of the Seventeenth Century: Muller and Huizinga The time has come to explore those associations and to ask ourselves why we still use the term. The term ‘Golden Age’ as a designation for the seventeenth century is rooted in those same feelings of pride, but it also has a longer history, of course, and a wider spectrum of associations, than a particular period in Dutch history. The nineteenth-century monuments and street names that place that era and its protagonists on a pedestal have come under fire. Today, some two centuries later, expressions of pride in that period of power and wealth attract fierce criticism. It emphazised pride in what were seen as periods of great prosperity and in the country’s heroes. The phrase ‘Golden Age’ became fashionable in the nineteenth century, when history was being framed in a nationalist context that served to unite the nation. I am happy about this, since the term is not fit for purpose. However, my museum, the Amsterdam Museum, has decided to stop using it. We still use the term without much thought. If I ask that same question today, over a hundred years later, I can still proceed on the assumption that most of my readers will immediately understand what I mean when I refer to the Dutch ‘Golden Age’. Such were the opening words of Pieter Lodewijk Muller (1842–1904) in the Preface to his monumental book on the seventeenth century in the Netherlands, Onze Gouden Eeuw – ‘Our Golden Age’ – in 1897. ‘Our Golden Age: need I tell anyone what I mean by this? Is there a single cultivated Dutchman who does not know that those words can only apply to the period of our history that lies between the departure of Leicester in 1587 and the Peace of Utrecht in 1713?’ Curator Tom van der Molen of the Amsterdam Museum is pleased with his museum’s decision and has written an essay about his own relationship to the term “Golden Age.” He explains why he now no longer uses the term as a standard way of referring to the seventeenth century. Among CODART members too, it is fair to assume that opinions will be divided. The decision prompted a tidal wave of reactions, some of them positive and some extremely negative. On 12 September 2019, the Amsterdam Museum announced that it would no longer be using the term ‘Golden Age’ as a synonym for the seventeenth century because the term does not give an accurate representation of that century and creates a barrier impeding efforts to tell the history of that era in ways that are relevant to the entire breadth of the population of Amsterdam and the Netherlands at large.
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