Visvangst met schepnet 1578

Philips Galle etched "Visvangst met schepnet," or "Fishing with a Scoop Net," in the late 16th century. The river, teeming with figures engaged in the age-old practice of fishing, is presided over by a classical, bearded river god, reclining with his cornucopia. This figure embodies the power and abundance of nature, seen time and again in different guises across cultures. Consider Neptune, god of the sea in Roman mythology; or Poseidon, his Greek counterpart. These figures share the symbolism of control over the elemental forces of water and its life-giving properties, yet each conveys a different cultural inflection, influenced by the society that worshipped them. The river god also acts as an emotional anchor, grounding the scene in a sense of timeless continuity. His serene posture, surrounded by the frenetic activity of the fishermen, elicits the tension between the eternal and the ephemeral. Such figures reemerge through history, each time reshaped by cultural memory, and echoing through the depths of our collective subconscious.