The Schelde Upstream from Antwerp After Fog 1892

"The Schelde Upstream from Antwerp After Fog" is a painting by Theo van Rysselberghe, rendered in the pointillist style. Van Rysselberghe, a Belgian painter, encountered the works of Seurat and Signac in the late 1880s and adopted their technique of applying small, distinct dots of color to create an image. It’s difficult to look at this painting without thinking about industrialization. This painting is a landscape, but not a pristine one. In the distance, a city looms, its smokestacks a testament to human activity. This image subtly asks us to consider our relationship to the environment, our impact on the natural world. There is a quiet beauty here, but it’s a beauty tinged with the reality of modernity. The fog has lifted, but its presence lingers, much like the memory of a time before industrialization. Van Rysselberghe invites us to see the Schelde not just as a river, but as a space where nature and industry coexist.