Landschap met Hagar en de engel Possibly 1776

Richard Earlom made this print titled "Landschap met Hagar en de engel" in 1776. It presents a biblical scene in the aesthetic language of its time. The image creates meaning through visual codes and cultural references tied to 18th-century European sensibilities. Britain in the 1770s was a society undergoing massive transformation. The image of Hagar, a woman cast out, may well speak to anxieties about social displacement. Earlom was employed by engraver John Boydell, who sought to foster a British school of history painting in competition with France. Prints such as these were crucial to that project, since it allowed the art to be widely disseminated to a British public. To understand it better, we can research the prevailing social norms around class, gender, and religion. The meaning of this art is contingent on its social and institutional context.