Kanaal met molens en zeilboot 1865 - 1925

Curator: Let’s take a moment with Jan Hillebrand Wijsmuller’s etching, "Kanaal met molens en zeilboot"—Canal with Windmills and Sailboat—sometime between 1865 and 1925. Editor: Ah, it’s one of those melancholy Dutch landscapes, isn’t it? Quiet water, brooding sky, the mills hulking like silent giants. A sense of waiting, perhaps for the wind to change, or for a story to begin. Curator: Exactly, and this stillness comes out of the painstaking labor in etching, of course. This kind of printmaking was essential for circulating images of landscapes—even more than painting, it facilitated an awareness of place, a sense of national identity tied to land. Editor: Yes, you can almost smell the linseed oil and imagine the artist bent over the plate, the burin slicing through the copper. It feels…intimate, that process. Different from the grand scale of oil painting. The image itself is quite accessible, though. It makes me wonder, who was this scene for, exactly? Were these widely sold to the public? Curator: Precisely. These prints weren’t precious singular objects so much as reproductive technologies intended for the market. Think about what it meant for folks who may never see the countryside to acquire views such as this. The proliferation of images really drove aesthetic sensibilities and perhaps even contributed to landscape preservation! Editor: And how reliant these Dutch masters are on wind power! They harnessed it with windmills but also with their ships…This reliance is expressed beautifully within the material, using tools to generate many images of reliance on wind and manpower! It really comes through here. The texture created by the etching process mimics the grainy texture of the natural scene itself. Curator: You put your finger on it. The hand work evident in the marks connects the industrial nature of the windmills themselves with the process. As technology and modes of image making become further and further removed from our sense of being on land or at sea, images such as this become particularly powerful reminders. Editor: A humble reminder of human collaboration with material conditions. It nudges me towards a profound respect for process and labor. Curator: Right! And the image…it's a lullaby. It leaves me humming to myself.