Geschiedenis van Genoveva / Histoire de Géneviève 1833 - 1911

This is a page from Rijksmuseum, titled Geschiedenis van Genoveva / Histoire de Géneviève, created by Brepols & Dierckx Zoon. Arranged into a grid of scenes, the artwork unfolds as a series of small narratives that recall the structure of a comic strip or a medieval tapestry. Each vignette is framed, yet the overall composition maintains a sense of flow through its careful ordering and the recurring figures that guide our eyes across the page. The piece engages with semiotic systems, using colour and composition not merely as aesthetic choices but as codes that signal shifts in the narrative. How do these sequential images construct a story, and what cultural values are embedded in their presentation? Does it challenge fixed meanings or engage with new ways of thinking about space, perception, power or representation? The formal constraint of the grid, paradoxically, allows for a rich exploration of narrative and pictorial space, making this page not just a sequence of events but a complex visual text that invites ongoing interpretation.