Uitkijkpunt in de tuinen van Kasteel Rosendael 1675 - 1711

This anonymous engraving offers us a view in the gardens of Kasteel Rosendael. While seemingly an innocuous landscape, it reflects the complex social hierarchies of its time. The meticulously designed garden and hilltop belvedere were status symbols for the elite. Think about the labor and resources required to construct and maintain such a space. Who had access to this landscape? Who was excluded? What kind of activities were deemed appropriate here, and what does this say about cultural values around leisure and privilege? On the lower right, we can see figures with dogs who may be hunting. Hunting was a pastime of the aristocracy, who had exclusive rights to hunt on their lands, reinforcing their social dominance. Even in the absence of explicitly rendered figures of race or gender, consider how the landscape itself is gendered and racialized. The manicured nature, the idea of controlling and shaping nature into an ideal form reflects power. This is not merely a landscape; it’s a stage upon which social power is performed and reinforced.