Eubia 1903

Willem Bastiaan Tholen made this etching of a boat, titled Eubia, sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Consider the context in which Tholen made this image. He was part of the Hague School, a group of Dutch artists who depicted the everyday lives of ordinary people. The group were very interested in the depiction of light and atmosphere. Etching was very popular in this period as the subtle variations of the technique were perfect for capturing the nuances of a scene. In a modernizing world, the Hague School artists were self-consciously turning away from depicting grand historical or mythological subjects. They chose instead to focus on the local, the everyday, and the ordinary. As historians, we can look more closely at this image to understand the social forces in play in Dutch culture at the time. We can research the Hague School to better understand their project and how they saw their role in society.