Utrecht School

A group of Dutch painters who went to Rome early in the 17th-c and were deeply influenced by Caravaggio. The most important were Dirck van Baburen (c.1595–1624), Gerrit van Honthorst, and Hendrik Terbrugghen.

The term Utrecht School refers to a group of painters active in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands in the early part of the 17th century. Painters like Dirck van Baburen, Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick Terbrugghen were all in Rome in the decade 1610–1620, a time when Caravaggio's style (see chiaroscuro) was very influential. Back in Utrecht, they painted religious pictures, but, unlike Caravaggio himself, also genre pieces.

The Utrecht School can be considered to have influenced later painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer.