Gezicht op Meerle met bomenrij en water op de voorgrond 1873

Emilie Rolin-Jacquemijns made this print, “View of Meerle with trees and water in the foreground,” using etching. She was working in a time when women artists, especially those from privileged backgrounds, were often confined to domestic subjects or portraiture. In this image, the artist directs our gaze over a sparse landscape that seems to reflect the quiet solitude of rural life, but perhaps also something of her own position as a woman in the late 19th century. Note the figure on the right, partially obscured by the very fine lines of the etching. It depicts a solitary figure wading through a flooded landscape. Is it the artist herself? Rolin-Jacquemijns here subtly pushes against the norms of her time. While she does not abandon landscape, she infuses it with a sense of personal reflection and quiet rebellion. The act of depicting the landscape might be seen as Rolin-Jacquemijns’ effort to assert her own space and vision within a world that often sought to limit women’s creative expression.