Gezicht op Arnhem 1679

Gaspar Bouttats's "View of Arnhem," etched around 1670, presents us with a panorama rich in symbolic undertones. The city itself, dominated by its imposing church tower, is more than just a place; it's a symbol of civic pride and spiritual aspiration, akin to the heavenly cities depicted in medieval tapestries. Consider the figures in the foreground embarking and disembarking on boats: this echoes the classical motif of crossing the River Styx, yet here it is imbued with the everyday, the mundane. One could draw a line back to the ships bearing souls towards the afterlife in ancient Greek pottery, or forward to the crowded migrant boats in modern news imagery, a perennial symbol that recurs to our subconscious anxieties about mortality. What threads bind us to these bygone eras, how is the subconscious of collective memory stirred when we observe this scene? It is a journey, a crossing, that carries us across time, revealing how symbols retain their emotional resonance through changing cultural landscapes.