De Boerderij 1662

This etching called "De Boerderij" was made by Monogrammist JVM. It depicts a Dutch landscape with a farmhouse, figures, and a boat. The work's attention to the everyday is typical of the art made in the Netherlands. It's a society that, having thrown off the rule of the Spanish crown, was self-consciously mercantile, Protestant, and relatively democratic. Genre scenes like this, of common life, served as a form of social cohesion that reminded people what they had in common. It's an art that is neither overtly in the service of the church, as in other countries, nor of the aristocratic class. To understand the work further, it's important to consider the Dutch landscape and the growth of the middle class during the period that the work was made, and how that shaped the art market.