Boslandschap met drie jonge geiten en een boerin die een bloem uit elkaar plukt c. 1881

Edmond Adolphe Rudaux created this forest landscape with etching. It depicts a woman in peasant dress who is pulling apart a flower while surrounded by three goats. During the 19th century, artistic depictions of rural life often served as a romanticized vision of the countryside. Here, the labor of rural life is almost nowhere to be found. Instead, we see a young woman absorbed in a quiet moment, seemingly unburdened by the hardships typically associated with peasant life. The act of disassembling the flower seems to mirror the social deconstruction of the pastoral mythos, revealing its fragility and perhaps critiquing its artificiality. While seemingly bucolic, the image subtly hints at underlying socio-economic tensions and gendered roles within rural communities. It invites reflection on the lived experiences of women in such settings, caught between nature's beauty and life's hard realities.