Kleine vijver in de tuinen van het Palacio del Buen Retiro te Madrid 1694 - 1737

Pieter van den Berge made this print of the Buen Retiro gardens in Madrid sometime around the turn of the 18th century. It's an etching, a printmaking process that involves biting lines into a metal plate with acid, inking the plate, and then running it through a press. The artist then added color by hand. Look closely, and you'll notice the careful labor involved. Every line, every figure, every detail of the landscape meticulously rendered. The architecture and figures in the garden speak to the culture of royal power, and the highly structured use of leisure time. Of course, this is an image of a garden – a space carefully manicured, its nature under control. The very act of creating the Buen Retiro gardens involved a great deal of labor, not least from the gardeners and laborers responsible for the very existence of this place. This print, like the gardens themselves, embodies a complex dance between human intervention, material transformation, and social order.