Landschap met molen 1743 - 1796

Dirk Kuipers made this landscape with mill in watercolour around the latter half of the 1700s. The image presents a scene from the Dutch countryside in which several figures are passing time near a windmill. Kuipers was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and watercolorist who was working at a time of great change, especially in the function of art. The art market had emerged, academies of art were becoming widespread, and the encyclopaedia was valorizing empirical knowledge. Kuipers contributed to the growth of Dutch landscape painting with his views of windmills like this one. Art historians will often consult historical sources to study how the institutionalization of art impacted artists like Kuipers and the pictures that they made. The meaning of art is highly contingent on context and the place in which it is made.