Boerderij onder bomen 1855 - 1904

Arnoud Schaepkens created this small etching of a farmhouse among trees with needle and acid. Born in Maastricht, in the Netherlands, he worked in a period when landscape art became a distinct marker of national identity. Artists turned their attention to the countryside, idealizing a rural existence that was under threat from the growth of cities and industrialization. Here, the building is dwarfed by nature, depicted with a dense network of lines. With its cottage-like design, is this image intended to evoke a romantic vision of the past? Or to make a subtle comment on the changing landscape of the Netherlands in the nineteenth century? To understand it better we can look at the history of landscape art in the Netherlands, its market, and its reception by the public. The meaning of a work like this shifts over time and depends on its social and institutional context.