The Civil Culture and the Civil Costume of Netherlands Women in the 17th Century through the works of Johannes Vermeer

요하네스 베르메르의 작품을 통해 본 17세기 네덜란드 여성 시민복과 시민문화

This thesis aims to investigate the characteristics of the civil costume in Netherlands women and the way how the civil culture was reflected on these by analyzing the women's costume depicted in the works of the Johannes Vermeer regarded as the representative painter of Netherlands in 17th century. The method of study was to select 24 pieces of Vermeer's works among the 30 pieces, and were analyzed in detail. These were approved to be common civil costumes by researching the works of other painters in that era on the other hand. The result shows that the civil costume of Netherlands women from 1653 until 1675 was in the simple form of two pieces dress, and minimal decorations with simple hair style and headdress would take the constitution of the frugality, chastity and practicality as the mainstream, along with using the red, yellow and blue as the primary three colors on to the costumes. These characteristics might be ascribed to the Netherlands civil culture influenced by the Calvinism that emphasized the frugality and chastity, denouncing the luxury with supporting the religion and morality. This trend was also noted in the men's costume, giving evidence of the intimate relationship between the costume, religion and civil culture. This thesis might be a help to elucidate the relationship between the costume and cultural society, and be a affordable tools to study the contemporary costume.