Valley with a River and a Town with Four Towers c. 1626 - 1627

Curator: Let’s pause here, in front of this seemingly modest yet deeply captivating etching, Valley with a River and a Town with Four Towers, made sometime around 1626 or '27 by Hercules Segers. It resides here at the Rijksmuseum. What's your immediate reaction? Editor: There’s a curious dreaminess, a feeling of a landscape both familiar and otherworldly. It feels as though I'm looking at a faded memory, or perhaps a prophecy. The whole image has a washed out aesthetic; did Segers only work in grays? Curator: While he favored a monochrome palette here, he was an experimental printmaker, known for colored etchings. It is the very qualities you mention which makes this example intriguing: notice how he layers his lines to almost paint with ink. Consider the symbols within the city itself: church spire and towers together imply aspiration toward higher authority and spiritual solace. Editor: Yes, those towers piercing the sky become almost desperate in their reach. But it's not only aspiration I feel. There’s also a vulnerability in how small the human constructions appear against the landscape—a reminder of our temporary place in the grand scheme. Does it portray a feeling of insignificance or solace? Curator: A bit of both, I suspect. The scale is humbling, sure. But that river cutting through the valley – that suggests possibility. The movement offers renewal, and connection to the broader world. These aren't opposing ideas; rather, a duality reflecting humanity's ever-evolving connection to nature. It’s this delicate balancing act between permanence and ephemerality. Editor: This feels distinctly baroque, yet his mark-making feels far looser and expressive than I might expect. He pushes the boundaries of what an etching of that period could achieve, doesn't he? Curator: Precisely. He’s playing with texture, with tone, disrupting conventions. To really capture it, step closer. Notice how he uses the bare minimum of lines in order to generate the feeling of immense detail and texture within this vista. Editor: Thinking about our present day relationship with screens, Hercules really captured how light makes our vision go from dark to light within moments and helps create meaning in the in-between. Curator: I agree, and I find it very remarkable to see how centuries later it's still fascinating to explore our sense of space through such mediums and techniques.