Landschap met een fort 1766

Caspar Jacobsz. Philips made this landscape with a fort, an etching, sometime in the 18th century. It depicts a rather dilapidated looking fort, and reminds us that even military power, even state power, is subject to decay. Notice that the image is an etching, a form of printmaking suited to the production of multiple images. This was a time when artworks were becoming more widely available, as new institutions like public museums and art academies were beginning to codify the concept of 'art' and make it accessible to wider audiences. Philips was working in the Netherlands, a country with a rich history of landscape painting that served the interests of the powerful merchant class. Prints like this one helped to codify ideas about the nation and its place in the world. We can better understand the nuances of this image by looking at the history of Dutch printmaking and the socio-economic circumstances in which Philips worked.