Scène uit de Tachtigjarige Oorlog 1833 - 1892

This is a scene from the Eighty Years' War, by Johannes Christiaan d' Arnaud Gerkens, made with pen in brown ink and brush in grey. The sepia ink gives the work a sense of immediate age and history, and the use of pen and brush reminds us that the work of art, like war itself, is made of many small gestures. Notice how much dark tonality is achieved with simple washes, layering the ink, and using the white of the paper for highlights. We can almost feel the artist building up the composition, stroke by stroke. The subject is a Dutch conflict with Spain, a struggle over labor, politics, and consumption. The image is built of small decisions and careful, skillful application, and reminds us that these large-scale events are really made up of a multitude of human actions. Understanding these historical forces, and the amount of labor involved in the production of a work of art, allows us to better appreciate their full meaning.