Groot schilderboek
Gérard de Lairesse. Te Haarlem : by Johannes Marshoorn, boekverkooper, 1740.
Gérard de Lairesse (1641-1711) was a Dutch painter and art theorist who also illustrated Govard Bidloo’s famous atlas Anatomia Hvmani Corporis. De Lairesse’s work Groot schilderboek (the great book of painting) was first published in 1707.
It was in this book, he expressed his disapproval of the realism style used by other Dutch Golden Age painters such as Rembrandt, Adriaen Brouwer, and Frans Hals, as they focused on everyday scenes and people such as soldiers, maids, farmers, and even beggars.
De Lairesse believed that paintings should depict grand historical, mythological, or biblical scenes in order to elevate the beauty and grace in reality. He also believed that only correct art theory would produce good art, and thus set strict rules about both the art themselves as well as how such art should be presented in physical spaces.