Arts and cultural manifestations in the Netherlands are varied and of exceptional quality, ranging from world-famous museums to an impressive variety of plays and concerts, with plenty of scope for experiment and innovation. Arts festivals too are held each year, featuring international as well as local productions.
Since freedom of expression is one of the cornerstones of Dutch democracy, the government is committed to promoting the independence and diversity of the media - the press, radio and television alike.
There are nearly 1000 museums in the Netherlands, more per head of population than in any other country in the world. The government supports museums whose activities serve the national interest. Efforts are now being made to coordinate the individual collections, creating a single "Dutch Collection" with as few duplications as possible. Some of the best-known museums are the Rijksmuseum and Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Mauritshuis in The Hague and Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn. Outstanding collections of modern and contemporary art can be seen at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Krˆller-M¸ller Museum in Otterlo, the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Special exhibitions such as Johannes Vermeer (1996), Rembrandt (1999), The Golden Age (2000) and The Presentation (A Sovereign Selection) (2001), enhance the country's status as a centre of culture.
The Netherlands has a long tradition of painting. The works of
Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Mondrian and many other
Dutch masters are known throughout the world. Modern Dutch painters
and sculptors have been extremely successful in keeping up this
tradition.
Contemporary Dutch artists are usually well represented at
international events such as the Biennale in Venice and the
Documenta in Kassel. Karel Appel (born in 1921) and Corneille (born
in 1922), are among the best-known post-war artists, and are still
very active. In 1948 they both helped to found the COBRA movement,
whose innovative approach greatly influenced many young artists.
The name derives from the first two letters of the cities
Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, where the adherents of the
movement worked. Other distinguished contemporary artists include
Ger van Elk, Jan Dibbets, Peter Struyken, Rob Scholte, Marthe
Rˆling and Marlene Dumas.
Simplicity, clarity and austerity are the hallmarks of Dutch design, which finds its most characteristic expression in work by De Stijl, a group of designers and artists who greatly influenced the Dutch art scene in the 1920s. Their work was characterised by straight lines and right angles. Leading representatives of this movement include Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and most especially Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964), an architect and cabinet-maker.
In the 1920s manufacturers began to recruit artists to design industrial products. One of these artists was Andries Copier (1901-1991), an internationally renowned designer of glass objects, some decorative and some utilitarian, of great simplicity but subtly detailed in colour and design. The simplicity which has come to be associated with Dutch design is reflected in a wide range of everyday objects, ranging from postage stamps to trains, waste bins, traffic signs and office furniture.
The Design Institute in Amsterdam, a world leader in its field, is responsible for promoting innovation and fostering dialogue between the different disciplines. Aspiring designers can study at the Eindhoven Academy of Industrial Design.
The Netherlands has an international reputation in the fields of architecture and urban development, and no fewer than 55,000 buildings are listed monuments. The country's 17th and 18th-century canalside houses are world-famous. Urban development schemes from the last century have also had a considerable impact. Examples include the Amsterdam South project designed by the architect and town planner Berlage, the postwar reconstruction of the centre of Rotterdam and the recent dockland development in south Rotterdam.
There is a wealth of modern architecture in the Netherlands and ample opportunity for young architects to experiment with new ideas in the country's emerging towns and growth centres.
Through its commissions, the government has a substantial impact on architectural trends. Its own buildings, for instance, for which the office of the chief government architect is responsible, are often trendsetters in their field. Some recent examples are the firm Hoogstad Architecten's ultramodern Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, and the postmodernist Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, designed by Michael Graves and Sjoerd Soeters. Both buildings are in The Hague.
Aldo van Eyck, Herman Hertzberger, Wim Quist, Pi de Bruyn, Rem Koolhaas and Jo Coenen are other well-known contemporary architects. Coenen designed the building which houses the Dutch Institute of Architecture and Town Planning in Rotterdam. Dutch architects are active in other countries, too. Rem Koolhaas, for instance, designed an urban expansion project for the French city of Lille. The Berlage Institute in Amsterdam runs workshops for talented young architects, urban planners and landscape architects from the Netherlands and abroad.
Many archaeological sites are to be found both in the countryside and beneath the towns and cities of the Netherlands. Some 1,500 are listed monuments and are therefore protected by the Monuments and Historic Buildings Act of 1988 and legislation on spatial planning. Dutch archaeology is of particular interest, as organic matter in the form of clothing, food and wood remains well preserved in the country's wet environment. Major archaeological structures include the prehistoric burial mounds in Drenthe, medieval fortresses (including Souburg, the Heimenberg and the Hunnenschans) and castles, such as Valkhof Castle in Nijmegen.
The Netherlands has many orchestras, based in towns and cities throughout the country. The most famous is Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, which frequently performs abroad. The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and the Schˆnberg Ensemble are well-known smaller groups.
Opera is flourishing in the Netherlands, and the Amsterdam-based Netherlands Opera has gained an international reputation. It stages an average of 10 productions a year, most of which are performed in Amsterdam's Muziektheater. Contemporary opera is an important part of the company's repertoire. The Holland Festival is an internationally renowned, avant-garde festival of music and performing arts. Staged in Amsterdam in June every year, the Holland Festival celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1997. Performers come from all over the world, and the Festival is a centre for experimental works. The Early Music Festival, an annual event held in Utrecht, features medieval and baroque music by acclaimed musicians from all over the world.
Jazz and improvised music also flourish. The North Sea Jazz Festival, which is held in The Hague each summer, is the largest and most famous jazz festival in Europe. Pop music is equally well represented. Pop festivals are organised throughout the year, Pinkpop, Parkpop, Lowlands and Dynamo Open Air being the most famous.
The Netherlands is a world leader in the field of modern dance. The Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) in The Hague enjoys an international reputation. There are also many smaller modern dance companies, Introdans being one of the better known. Scapino Ballet in Rotterdam, which originally attracted mainly young audiences, has built up a wide repertoire of contemporary dance in recent years. The National Ballet in Amsterdam performs mainly classical ballets, but also presents a repertoire of 20th-century work by choreographers such as Rudi van Dantzig, Hans van Maanen, Toer van Schayk and the American George Balanchine.
The Hague's biennial Holland Dance Festival features some of the most outstanding dance productions in the world. The Springdance festival in Utrecht and the Cadance festival in The Hague, both of which are held annually, showcase the latest trends in modern dance.
The Netherlands has many professional theatre groups, including traditional companies and smaller troupes who concentrate on new forms of theatre, often combining music, mime and new media techniques. Theatre company Dogtroep, for instance, regularly stages large-scale productions abroad.
Each year, the highlights of the Dutch and Flemish theatre season are performed at a drama festival in Amsterdam and in the Belgian city of Antwerp.
Large-scale Dutch-language musical productions like Joe and Chicago, a new trend in the Netherlands, have gained tremendous popularity in recent years. The Netherlands Theatre Institute helps to promote the performing arts, serves as an information centre and houses a theatre museum.
The Netherlands has a relatively small film industry, which produces around 20 feature films a year, some in association with other countries. A few have won international acclaim. In 1987, The Assault by Fons Rademakers received the Academy Award for the best foreign-language film. Since then, Marleen Gorris has won an Oscar for Antonia's Line (1996) and Mike van Diem for Character (1998). Oscar-winning short films include Glass (1958) by Bert Haanstra, This Tiny World (1973) by Charles Huguenot van der Linden, Anna and Bella (1985) by B¯rge Ring and Father and Daughter (2000) by M. Dudok-de Wit.
The Rotterdam International Film Festival (in February) and Amsterdam's International Documentary Film Festival (in December) enjoy a growing international reputation. Other festivals include the World Wide Video Festival (in April), the Holland Animation Festival (once every two years in November), Utrechtís Dutch Film Festival (in September) and the Cinekid festival for children (in October).
The Netherlands has produced several outstanding documentary filmmakers. They include the filmmaker and photographer Johan van der Keuken, who gained an international reputation for his art films. Van der Keuken, who died in 2001, immortalised his own death in his last film, a philosophical documentary about mortality and the will to survive.
Joris Ivens (1898-1989) achieved international renown for his documentaries, in which he expressed his personal commitment to peoples who fight for their freedom. His best-known film The Spanish Earth, about the Spanish Civil War, was produced with Ernest Hemingway in 1937. Ivens worked and taught all over the world, from North Vietnam to Chile, China, Mali and France.
Since before the Second World War, the Netherlands has had a tradition of socially committed photography. The first World Press Photo Exhibition was held in 1975. World Press Photo is an independent non-profit organisation set up in the Netherlands in 1955. Its aim is to support and promote the work of professional press photographers the world over. Every year it organises the world's largest press photo competition, selecting the best entries for an exhibition that tours 35 countries. World Press Photo also organises workshops and follows the latest developments in the field of photojournalism.
Dutch studio and portrait photography has attracted international attention since the 1980s. Documentary photography is especially popular with the younger generation of photographers, many of whom tend to portray people, landscapes and cityscapes.
Excellent collections of photographs are to be found in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, which specialises in 19th-century photographs, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the Print Room at Leiden University. The Netherlands Photography Institute, the Netherlands Photographic Archive and the National Photograph Restoration Workshop all share premises in Rotterdam.
Despite the comparatively small market for Dutch publications, the Netherlands has a rich literary heritage and has produced major writers. Poetry is a particularly popular genre: only Japan and Iceland publish more volumes of poetry each year.
In the Middle Ages, Dutch literature was part of a broad Western European tradition, which found expression in epic tales of chivalry such as Floris ende Blancefloer and Karel ende Elegast, and allegories such as Van den Vos Reynaerde (Reynard the Fox) and Elckerlyk (Everyman). The 16th century saw the rise of humanism. Erasmus of Rotterdam was one of its leading exponents. His Praise of Folly, a satire on the church and society, has been translated from Latin into many languages.
Among the literary highlights of the 17th century, Holland's Golden Age, were Spinoza's philosophical treatises. Dutch literature flourished during this period, which produced writers such as Vondel, Hooft, Huygens and Bredero. The Bible was also translated into Dutch in the 17th century, and the publication of De Statenbijbel - the authorised version - in 1637 is considered a milestone in the evolution of the Dutch language.
The most distinguished writer of the 19th century was Multatuli, whose novel Max Havelaar was an indictment of Dutch rule in the Netherlands East Indies (present-day Indonesia).
Post-war literature was long dominated by three eminent novelists, Willem Frederik Hermans, Harry Mulisch and Gerard Reve. The war plays an important role in the works of Hermans and Mulisch. Other distinguished post-war writers include Hella Haasse, Jan Wolkers, Cees Noteboom, Maarten 't Hart, Adri van der Heijden, Arnon Grunberg, Mensje van Keulen and Connie Palmen. More and more books by Dutch writers are being translated into other languages. In recent decades, Dutch literature has gained increasing popularity abroad.
The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature plays an important role in propagating Dutch literature abroad. Its aim is to ensure that a wide range of good Dutch literature is available, both in the original and in translation.
Public libraries are very popular, especially among young people. Some 60 percent of under-16s belong to a library, membership being free for this age group. Public libraries own an estimated total of more than 44.5 million books.
Most municipalities have their own public libraries, some 1,200 in all. Smaller communities are served by mobile libraries, of which there are approximately 100, and the public libraries and mobile services together serve 4.5 million registered borrowers. The public libraries receive the bulk of their funding from local and provincial authorities. Authors and publishers receive lending right fees. Public libraries also stock music cassettes, CDs, films and videos. In addition, books are available on tape, in braille and in electronic form for visually disabled people. There are several libraries for the blind, with over 40,000 members.
The Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Royal Library) in The Hague, which was founded in 1798, is the national library of the Netherlands. It is a research library, containing over 3 million volumes. The Dutch copyright depository is an important part of the library which endeavours to collect at least one copy of every publication that appears in the Netherlands. Brinkman's Cumulative Catalogue of Books, the national bibliography, is based on this collection.
There are 20 research libraries that students and researchers may use, most of them connected to universities. Amsterdam University Library is the largest. The university libraries of Leiden (founded in 1575), Groningen (1614) and Utrecht (1636) and Deventer municipal library (1560) are among the oldest research libraries. Almost all university libraries receive grants from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
In addition to libraries, there are numerous record departments within government departments and commercial and private organisations. The largest, the National Archives in The Hague, is the repository of the records of all central government departments. Documents more than 20 years old are passed on to public record offices. The municipalities have their own record offices.
Important private archives include the Royal Archives in The Hague and the records housed at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, the International Information Centre for the Women's Movement in Amsterdam and the Dutch Institute for Architecture and Town Planning in Rotterdam.
The government is responsible for creating the conditions that enable the press and other media to fulfil the vital role they play in keeping all sectors of the public informed.
The Dutch press comprises daily newspapers, news periodicals and magazines. The major daily newspapers are De Telegraaf and the Algemeen Dagblad (both aimed at a large readership), and the 'quality' newspapers NRC Handelsblad, Trouw and De Volkskrant. Trouw has traditionally aimed at a Protestant readership, while De Volkskrant targets left-leaning Catholic readers. NRC Handelsblad, in the libertarian tradition, strives to maintain a strict separation between news and opinion in order to report as objectively as possible. However, both Trouw and the Volkskrant also attempt to be objective. The increasing secularisation of society means that the ideological component of reporting is becoming less and less important. There are also many regional papers. Het Parool focuses mainly on Amsterdam and the surrounding area. Almost every household in the country subscribes to a daily newspaper, but the younger generation is increasingly turning to the Internet as an information source. Major newspapers publish the news on their own Internet sites, which are regularly updated.
Magazines may be categorised as news periodicals, general interest magazines, radio and television guides and special interest magazines. The most widely read news magazines are Vrij Nederland, HP/De Tijd and Elsevier, all of which are fairly influential despite their relatively small circulation. General interest magazines have a much wider readership. The most popular women's magazines, for example, Libelle and Margriet, have a circulation of 670,000 and 450,000 respectively. Radio and television guides, which include articles on a wide range of subjects, also have a large circulation. Some popular magazines publish the latest news and gossip about Dutch celebrities and stars from the international world of film and show business, but the Netherlands has never shown a real appetite for tabloid journalism.
The Media Act expressly provides that broadcasting organisations have control over the nature and content of their programmes.
The Netherlands has had a public broadcasting system since the 1920s. Programmes are provided by seven broadcasting associations, each of which has a specific religious, ideological or cultural point of view. All seven associations work together in the Netherlands Broadcasting Corporation (NOS) and the NOS Programme Foundation, which mainly broadcasts arts programmes and programmes for young people and ethnic minorities. Public broadcasting is funded from public revenue and from advertising. The Radio and Television Advertising Foundation (STER) is responsible for television and radio advertising. Commercials are aired between programmes; advertising during programmes is not permitted on public channels.
The Netherlands has three national television channels and five radio stations. Commercial broadcasting was first introduced in 1992. Practically all Dutch homes are linked to the cable network, which offers a wide range of Dutch and foreign commercial and public viewing.
Radio Nederland Wereldomroep (RNW) is an independent station broadcasting radio and television programmes throughout the world for Dutch people living abroad and for foreigners who are interested in the Netherlands and Dutch culture. The radio programmes, which feature news and current affairs, sports reports and cultural bulletins, are broadcast daily in seven languages on the short and medium wave, on local FM wavelengths and by satellite. Under the name BVN/TV, the RNW and the NOS also provide a wide range of television programmes in Dutch, including news and information programmes, television series and entertainment. These programmes are supplied by the public channels. BVN/TV can only be received by ASTRA satellite.