Landschap met herders, vee en triomfboog rond een meer Possibly 1775

Curator: Okay, so first impressions. The print reminds me of a daydream… it has this hazy quality, a sort of faded grandeur. Like a beautiful memory seen through time. Editor: You’ve hit on something there! What we're looking at is a landscape, made around 1775 by Richard Earlom, called "Landschap met herders, vee en triomfboog rond een meer". So "Landscape with shepherds, cattle, and triumphal arch around a lake". Curator: Earlom…the name has an interesting ring, almost ancient in itself! And those shepherds, and cows around a lake framed by Roman ruins. See, I find it kind of calming and melancholic all at once. Editor: It certainly taps into classical tropes of the pastoral. Note how that arch looms –it’s almost a fragment of a half-forgotten empire that dwarfs the little figures in the foreground. Symbols of power that endure long after the rulers are gone. Curator: Definitely. The arch seems to guard this space, creating this dream-like atmosphere that permeates everything...And the cows! Those humble grazers...they are unaware that they walk a landscape of faded glory, lost civilizations! Almost as if the weight of history is light as a feather, lost into nothing... Do you find the contrast interesting, too? The detail he's able to create with light pencilwork? Editor: The homemade, aged paper that grounds Earlom’s print is significant too, the print is a blend of etching techniques. Each line seems infused with memory, and each shadow carries stories. These are old stories being made new and relatable again. It gives new shape and meaning. Curator: Right! Like echoes of antiquity. Richard Earlom somehow brings us, or at least me, to a place out of time where goats, Romans and British engravers all coexist happily. It's quite poetic, I must say. Editor: Exactly. By combining this sense of timelessness with potent symbolism, Earlom prompts us to consider not just the passage of time, but what persists, or haunts the passing of time as civilizations come and go, leaving only their arches and their artworks for cows to ponder!