River Landscape with Wooded Banks n.d.

Lodewijk de Vadder created this drawing of a river landscape with pen and brown ink, and brown wash, in the 17th century. De Vadder lived and worked in Brussels, at a time when the region was under the rule of the Habsburgs. His landscapes often feature the Sonian Forest, a place of both natural beauty and royal hunting grounds. In this drawing, we see the bend of a river, a humble house, and a thicket of trees. Notice the quiet stillness of the scene. How might the representation of nature intersect with ideas of national and cultural identity? The low perspective invites us to imagine ourselves walking along this path, to consider our own relationship to the land. The image also reflects the hierarchy of the time, in which the land and its resources are at the service of aristocratic pleasure. Although seemingly bucolic, there is a quiet tension in de Vadder's landscape.