Het gevecht bij de rivier 1710

Bernard Picart created this print, "The Fight by the River," sometime around the turn of the 18th century using a technique called engraving. This involved incising lines into a metal plate, applying ink, and then using a press to transfer the image onto paper. The process itself is critical to understanding the image. Look closely, and you’ll see that everything is composed of lines – the figures, the landscape, even the turbulent water. Each of these lines had to be carefully cut by hand, a labor-intensive process that required great skill. There's a real tension here: the classical subject matter, which would have been seen as high art, is rendered through a decidedly workaday process. Prints like this were often made for reproduction and dissemination, making art more accessible to a wider audience. So while Picart engaged with classical themes, his chosen medium democratized access to them, acknowledging the importance of craft and the wider world of labor and production.