Soldaten-leven / Achttiende eeuw c. 1843 - 1920

This print, "Soldaten-leven/Achttiende eeuw," by Feodor Dietz, was made in the 19th century using etching. It depicts scenes from the life of soldiers in the 1700s. The print shows a variety of scenes of soldiers, some heroic, others much less so: soldiers riding horses, marching, and engaging in battle, as well as more intimate settings depicting lower class interactions, possibly in the Netherlands, where Dietz was based. The romanticism of war is challenged by the inclusion of an injured man and a grieving woman. Prints like this gained popularity as ways to disseminate ideas, especially nationalistic ones, to a broad public. As a historian, I'm interested in understanding the artist’s relationship to these ideologies. How might we research the artist’s personal history, the institutional pressures of the art market, and the social function of this type of imagery? These are the questions we ask when we investigate the social history of art.