Landschap met een legerkamp 1716 - 1772

Hyacinth de La Pegna created this landscape with a military encampment using etching, likely sometime in the mid-18th century. The scene depicts soldiers and support staff at rest. What does it mean to represent the everyday life of an army? In the 1700s, wars were fought by professional soldiers, often mercenaries, who might have had more loyalty to their commanding officer than the state. The soldiers here are not engaged in glorious battle, they appear to be at leisure. Does this casual depiction invite us to sympathize with the soldiers, or does it normalize military conflict? This etching was made in the Netherlands, a nation that was often at war in this period. Careful archival research into the Dutch military system, its economic structure, and its visual culture would be helpful in understanding this image more fully. Historians can bring the social context of this image to life, and help us understand its cultural work.