Herder met schapen en koeien bij een water 1841 - 1847

Johannes Christiaan d' Arnaud Gerkens created this print of a shepherd with sheep and cattle by a body of water. It’s a lithograph, which is a printmaking process using a flat stone or metal plate. The artist draws on the surface with a greasy substance, then applies ink, which adheres only to the drawn areas. Looking at the finished print, we see how the lithographic process lends itself to subtle gradations of tone, giving a soft, almost hazy atmosphere to the scene. The figures of the shepherd, sheep, and cattle are rendered with a delicate touch, their forms emerging from the landscape with a gentle grace. Lithography, in its time, was an innovative medium, and opened printmaking to a wider range of artists, and with that a greater variety of imagery. In this case, a pastoral scene, perhaps romanticizing rural labor even as industrialization was changing the nature of work. It reminds us that even seemingly straightforward images can carry complex social and cultural meanings.