Krantenlezer met hoge hoed 1865 - 1930

Jac van Looij made this small graphite drawing, entitled ‘Krantenlezer met hoge hoed’, or ‘Newspaper reader with top hat’ at an unknown date. It depicts a bourgeois man sitting and reading a newspaper. The image creates meaning through visual codes that would have been very clear to van Looij’s contemporaries. The man's top hat, spectacles, and formal jacket point towards a certain level of social status and wealth in late 19th century Netherlands. The newspaper itself is also significant here as a marker of class and civic engagement. Newspapers were increasingly important in the 19th century as tools of political discourse and were closely associated with the rise of a bourgeois public sphere. Art historians rely on sources from the time to help us better understand the social and cultural context in which artworks like this were made.