Sluis van de molen bij Grupont 1846 - 1878

Félix de Baerdemaecker made this print of the sluice of the mill at Grupont with etching. It recalls landscape painting from earlier in the nineteenth century, but it also shows the growing importance of technology and industry for representing the Belgian countryside. The sluice gate suggests the management of natural resources for economic gain. Though not as overtly political as some of Courbet’s paintings of stonebreakers, this image reflects a growing interest in the lives of working people and the impact of industry on nature. As an art historian, I’m drawn to the social context in which this image was made. We might think about the economic transformations Belgium was undergoing at the time, the changing role of rural labor, and even the development of new technologies of printmaking that allowed images like this to be widely disseminated.