Heuvellandschap met brug in Bath 1899

Pieter Dupont created this landscape with bridge in Bath using etching, a printmaking technique that allows for detailed and textured lines. The work invites us into a scene where nature and architecture meet. This landscape evokes the picturesque movement, a late 18th and early 19th-century aesthetic ideal that emphasized beauty in the irregular and the "natural". Unlike the formal gardens and grand structures favored by the aristocracy, the picturesque celebrated humble, rural scenes, framing them as spaces of emotional and aesthetic experience. Dupont develops an alternative narrative, inviting the viewer to find beauty in the understated English landscape. While seemingly apolitical, landscape art has always reflected power dynamics, defining who has access to land and how it is portrayed. Here, we can imagine how Dupont’s work might have served as both an escape from and an engagement with the social realities of his time. It offers a quiet, reflective space, yet hints at the broader narratives of land, identity, and belonging.