Landschap met houten brug 1640 - 1679

Jan van de Cappelle made this etching of a landscape with a wooden bridge in the Netherlands sometime in the mid-17th century. We see a scene of everyday life in the Dutch countryside, complete with farm buildings, people on a bridge, and a small boat on the river. Cappelle was an amateur artist who came from a wealthy background as the son of a cloth dyer and as such was not reliant on the patronage of the state, church, or wealthy individuals. This etching reflects the values of Dutch Golden Age painting, emphasizing the common person and the beauty of the natural world, rather than the more aristocratic values of previous generations. It suggests the growing importance of trade and commerce in Dutch society. It is a world in which the old social hierarchies were being challenged and a new sense of national identity was being forged. To understand the work better, we need to explore the visual culture of the 17th-century Netherlands, and to analyze the changing relationship between art, commerce, and society.