Verona before 1931

Etienne Bosch made this print, Verona, in the early twentieth century. It's an evocative image of the Italian city, made with the etching process. Bosch, a Belgian artist, was working at a time when printmaking was undergoing a revival. Artists like Bosch, who were interested in social change, saw printmaking as a way to democratize art by making it more accessible to a wider audience. But this aestheticization of everyday life also came at a time when traditional social structures were being disrupted by industrialization and urbanization. Here, the city of Verona is rendered in soft, hazy lines, almost dreamlike. We see the river Adige flowing through the city, with its bridges and buildings reflected in the water. But what does it mean to represent the real world in the form of a dream? What is the public role of an artwork like this? As historians, we can look at the artist's life, the social and political context in which he was working, and the art institutions that supported him, to better understand this image and its meaning.