The Monument's End: Public Art and the Modern Republic

How today’s questions surrounding monuments and the ways we commemorate our past first arose in Rembrandt’s time

Monuments occupy a controversial place in nations founded on principles of freedom and self-governance. It is no accident that when we think of monuments, we think of statues modeled on legacies of conquest, domination, and violence. The Monument’s End reveals how the artists, architects, poets, and scholars of the early modern Netherlands contended with the profound disconnect be...