Drama by Design: Art and Society in the Age of Gentileschi and Rubens traces the dramatic artistic and social developments of seventeenth-century Europe through masterpieces “meticulously collected” by the Birmingham Museum Trust (Birmingham, UK). Featuring over 50 works by artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Orazio Gentileschi, and Claude Lorrain, this exhibition explores the turbulence of a century marked by political upheaval, religious conflict, and cultural innovation. 

During the seventeenth century, Europe saw the rise of influential royal courts, the growth of cities populated by wealthy merchants with money to spend on art, and the overthrow and assassination of several rulers. Citizens lived through famine and plagues, while religious schisms between Protestants and Catholics rocked the continent and war was a familiar presence. The role of art and material culture grew dramatically. In the Protestant Netherlands, religious imagery was stripped from many churches, while in Italy and Spain, art played a vital role in reasserting Catholic faith and doctrine.   

The exhibition is divided into three thematic sections: faith and religion, society and politics, and trade and innovation. The political, social, and religious turmoil reflected in these sections was what the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and other early immigrants to the Americas were leaving behind. However, the separation of an ocean did not completely divorce them from events in Europe. Expansion and global trade increased apace in the seventeenth century, and through the travels of soldiers, diplomats, artists, traders, missionaries, and more, as well as those migrating to a new town or country in the hope of a better life, this period saw far greater levels of contact, communication, and exchange between people from different cultures and communities than ever before.