Dutch's Artistic Window

17^th century is a golden age for Netherland. As a typical capitalist country, Netherland soon became a European trading hub connecting the East and the West while Amsterdam turned out to be the trade and culture center of Europe. In this period of time, lots of talented young artists who represented the so-called'Dutch School'showed up including masters like Vermeer and Rembrandt, crowning the era with the title'Dutch Golden Age'. The prosperous Dutch art then gave birth to landscape painting, genre painting, animal painting and still life painting which petty bourgeoisie favors more. Among these masterpieces, still life painting develops into pure and independent variety which represented Dutch painting at that time and honored Netherland with splendid glory. Hence, Still life paintings are windows of Netherland that bear shining brightness of the European painting history.This paper tries to elaborate the development of Dutch Still Life Paintings in 17^th century and compared them with other countries'pieces to highlight the likeness and unlikeness through a thorough and comprehensive interpretation. Meanwhile, we are to find out Dutch's commercial hegemony back then using large amount of pictorial information we find in the Dutch Still Life Paintings. And the paper will discuss the interesting and converging parts of the cultural exchange between the East and the West revealing by Still Life Paintings.This paper also sorts the Dutch Still Life Paintings into several categories the diversity of the painting styles. Meanwhile, we are to categorize and analyze those painting from the aspects of both contents and performing skills, thus mine the profound implications behind masterpieces of the same style or genre.Apart from discussing the massive features and characteristics of the 17^th century's Still Life Painting, we also try to compare different art pieces and artists to reveal the ideas and concepts that Dutch Still Life Paintings attempt to imply in their colors and compositions, analyze Still Life Paintings'philosophy meanings and implicative symbols, mine the further connotation behind these art pieces and find out the general characteristics of the 17^th century Dutch Still Life Paintings.