kunstschilders

Kunstschilders is a Dutch term for painters who produce visual artworks, i.e., practitioners of painting in the fine arts. The term combines kunst ('art') and schilder(s) ('painter(s)') and is used to distinguish professional, often trained artists who create paintings from other types of painters such as house painters or decorative painters.

In Dutch and Flemish contexts, kunstschilders has historically referred to artists who worked in studios, taught themselves or trained in academies, and produced works in genres such as portraiture, landscape, history painting, still life, and genre scenes. The scope ranges from early modern painters of the Dutch Golden Age to contemporary artists.

Training typically occurred through apprenticeships in a master’s studio or at art academies, with emphasis on drawing, composition, anatomy, and mastery of technique with oil paint, though other media such as acrylic, watercolor, or gouache are also used. Many kunstschilders operated within workshops or collaborative ateliers and, in later centuries, by exhibiting in salons and galleries and selling works through dealers and auction houses.

Today the term remains largely historical in common usage but continues to appear in art-historical literature to describe professional painters, especially within the Netherlands and Belgium. It distinguishes visual artists who pursue painting as a primary medium from other trades within the broader field of painting.