Landschap met vee 1867 - 1890

Editor: This is "Landschap met vee," or "Landscape with Cattle," an etching by Philip Zilcken, made sometime between 1867 and 1890. It's a pretty standard pastoral scene, cows in a field. I’m struck by how the sky almost feels like another field. What do you see in this print? Curator: I see more than just cows in a field. This print exists within a complicated social landscape. Think about the time this was made. Industrialization was changing the Dutch countryside. Scenes like this became idealized, even romanticized. Were they representing a reality, or an imagined past? How does the artist position the relationship between nature and agriculture, and between humans and animals? Editor: That's interesting. I hadn't thought about the industrial context. It makes the scene feel a little melancholic, like it's yearning for something that was already disappearing. Curator: Exactly. Consider, too, who had access to these images? Prints like this were often consumed by the urban middle class, people increasingly detached from the rural life it depicted. It speaks to a specific kind of cultural nostalgia and also perhaps, a particular anxiety about modernity. Editor: So the cows become symbols, not just cows? A representation of a life that’s idealized? Curator: Precisely! This image acts as a powerful tool for understanding late 19th century social and economic anxieties in the Netherlands. This "simple" scene holds complex dialogues. Editor: This makes me look at the image very differently, realizing art does not happen in a vacuum. Thanks! Curator: Indeed! Art constantly dialogues with the sociopolitical. Thanks for making me look at Zilcken's etching anew as well.