Voorjaar, ca. 1625

This etching, Voorjaar, was made around 1625 by Hessel Gerritsz. Here we see the grounds of a Dutch country estate in springtime. The composition is divided between the labor of the lower classes and the leisure of the elite. In the foreground, peasants are working the land, while in the middle ground, members of the gentry stroll through the garden. The work embodies a particularly Dutch obsession with landscape as both an aesthetic and economic resource, it is a celebration of land ownership and wealth accumulation. The print is part of a series representing the four seasons, in which the Netherlands is presented as a land of plenty, orderly and bountiful. To understand this work better, one might look to the visual language of the print itself, in relation to how class and labor were understood in the Netherlands at this time. A great place to start is with the extensive collection of prints and drawings at the Rijksmuseum itself.