As mentioned before (see section Culture) Dutch artists had quite different customers from their colleagues in other European countries, where church and nobility were major patrons. This had an influence on the themes they depicted and their pictorial style. Also many paintings were not produced for commission and found their way to auctions and art traders. This fostered specialization, by which less than brilliant painters could dedicate themselves to themes of their own choosing and still excel in a particular genre.
Popular genres were
historical paintings
portraits (both of individual persons and groups)
landscapes and cityscapes
still lifes
scenes of everyday life, also called genre paintings
Combinations of these categories occurred. Allegories, in which painted objects conveyed symbolic meaning about the subject, were often applied. For instance, a still life might include a skull, an hourglass and a snuffed out candle, symbols which all emphasized mortality. Also seasons were often indicated by human activities that were typical for that time of the year (skating, sowing, harvesting, etc). Paintings often had a moralistic message hidden under the surface.
The Historical Painting category comprises not only paintings that depicted real historical events, but also paintings that showed biblical, mythological, literary and allegorical scenes. Large dramatic historical or biblical scenes were less often produced than in other countries, where religious and noble patrons of art often sought to overawe the viewer. Instead Dutch painters, especially in the northern provinces, tried to invoke emotion on the part of the spectator by letting him/her be a bystander on a scene of profound intimacy. As such Rembrandt and Rubens are striking examples of large differences in style between Dutch painters from the northern Low Countries, the Dutch Republic, and Flanders in the south.
Many of Dutch greatest painters were inspired and influenced, as least during their formative years, by Italian paintings. Copies of Italian masterpieces circulated and suggested certain compositional schemes. Also treatment of light, in which Dutch painters would become absolute masters themselves, could partly be traced back to Italian predecessors, notably Caravaggio. Some Dutch painters also travelled to Italy to make firsthand observations.
