Slag van Waterloo / Bataille de Waterloo 1800 - 1833

This print, "Slag van Waterloo" by Philippus Jacobus Brepols, created without a specified date, presents a series of scenes from the Battle of Waterloo. The composition is structured through a grid-like arrangement of six distinct panels, each presenting a different moment from the battle. Look at how Brepols uses line and color to distinguish figures and actions within each scene. The limited palette, with touches of yellow, green, and brown, flattens the pictorial space, emphasizing the surface quality of the print. There's a structural tension here, where the graphic style reduces the complexity of the event to a series of simplified, almost cartoonish vignettes. Brepols uses the semiotic language of military iconography to interpret the battle’s events, employing flags, uniforms, and poses that conform to cultural codes of heroism and defeat. Consider the way the artist’s formal choices undermine any singular, authoritative reading of history. The print functions not as a transparent window onto the past but as a constructed representation, framed by the conventions and ideologies of its time.