Polaroids of Amsterdam nightlife in the 1970s follow a long tradition of picturing drunks

InHolland, the denizens of bars and pubs have long provided artists with subject matter both timeless and socially critical. Dutch Golden Age painters like Jan Steen and Adriaen van Ostade, attempting to condense into a frame the fractious, dynamic, destitute world of working class tavern culture, made moving portraits of publicans and drunks in 17th century. Such typological portraits depicting the anonymous faces, or tronies, of the lower classes were a kind of genre study best exemplified by the works of Adriaen Brouwer, a dissolute artist whose hard-partying lifestyle brought to his works a kind of louche authenticity. In 20th century Europe, the tronie genre reemerged with the new medium of photography, where masters like Brassaï in France and Anders Petersen in Germany saw the <a href="https://timeline.com/bar-photography-smoking-ban-66932c7a3ed5" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">barroom as a microcosm</a> of the world at large. In a way, the confines of the public house offered liberation for the creative snapshooter by providing an ideal incubator of willing subjects, controlled light, and the time needed to blend in and observe. Turns out, taking drunk snapshots of your friends at the bar can actually count as art. <a href="https://timeline.com/polaroids-of-amsterdam-nightlife-in-the-1970s-follow-a-long-tradition-of-picturing-drunks-475408c10cbb">Learn More</a>