If you search through the art history archives for hidden gags, visual puns, and absurd characters, it will become clear—no one does it like the Dutch. In fact, 25 joke books were written in the ...

Frans Post, "Landscape in Brazil with Sugar Plantation" (1660), oil on canvas, 14 1/2 x 21 1/4 inches (36.9 x 54 cm), held at the National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen (image via Wikimedia Commons) ...

Isaak Koedijk's "The Barber Surgeon," painted in 1649-1650, is one of numerous paintings on display at the San Diego Museum of Art as part of the "Dutch Painting: Special Loans from the Museum of Fine ...