Travelers in Hilly Countryside c. 1650

Aelbert Cuyp made this painting with oil on canvas, a common, even standardized process at the time. Consider for a moment what canvas actually is: a textile, woven from plant fibers like flax. Like any agricultural commodity, flax came at the cost of land use, labor, and shipping, all reflected in the price of the canvas. Similarly, the oil used in the paint was likely linseed oil, also derived from a crop, and the pigments, such as ochre, came from the earth. These materials evoke the wider economic system of the Dutch Golden Age, in which land and labor were meticulously accounted for. Look closely at the amount of labor represented here; not only in the work that went into the painting itself, but also the work depicted: the travelers, and the goods they carry. Cuyp’s painting gives us much to consider, from the cost of a hard-won landscape, to the value of human effort.