Huizen op het duin bij Scheveningen c. 1873

Johannes Bosboom made this pencil drawing of houses on a dune near Scheveningen in the Netherlands. He was part of the Hague School, a group of Dutch artists who painted in a style that was influenced by the Barbizon school in France. Bosboom's sketch is interesting in that it gives us insight into the social conditions that shaped artistic production in the Netherlands at the time. Bosboom depicts simple buildings of working-class people instead of romantic landscapes or historical scenes. The Hague School artists often focused on the everyday lives of ordinary people. By doing so, they were commenting on the social structures of their time. Bosboom was part of a broader movement in European art that sought to depict the realities of modern life, including the lives of the poor and working class. To better understand this drawing, one could research the history of Scheveningen as a fishing village and the social conditions of the people who lived there.