The Little Angels on the Hill 

Herman van Swanevelt made this landscape print, ‘The Little Angels on the Hill,’ sometime in the mid-17th century using etching. This intaglio process involves coating a metal plate with a waxy ground, drawing through it with a needle, and then immersing the plate in acid. The acid bites into the exposed lines, which are then inked and printed. What’s fascinating here is the relationship between this laborious, indirect process and the imagery it produces. Etching was often used to reproduce paintings, but Swanevelt, who had been a painter himself, is ‘inventor fecit et excudit’ – the designer, maker, and publisher of the image. The landscape is not the setting for a historical or religious narrative; instead, the countryside itself becomes the subject. Consider how this print, multiplied from a single copperplate, made it possible to experience the landscape from afar, to possess it in some small way. It is a reminder that even ostensibly straightforward images are born of complex processes, infused with social and economic meaning. By acknowledging the means of production, we recognize how such prints democratized access to images and ideas, challenging conventional hierarchies between fine art and the graphic arts.