Gezicht op een ruïne 1682

Arnold Houbraken made this print, titled 'View of a Ruin', sometime between 1660 and 1719, using etching. It is currently held in the Rijksmuseum. The print is a meditation on the nature of worldly achievement. We see a ruined building, perhaps a monastery, being consumed by the natural world, and accompanied by a poem reflecting on the capacity of sin to weaken any building, however impressive. This image should be understood in the context of the Northern Netherlands in the 17th and early 18th centuries, a time of great wealth and expansion built on mercantile trade and colonial exploitation. Houbraken may be suggesting that even this society, so confident in its project, would eventually crumble. To better understand this print, we might look to the religious culture of the time, with its emphasis on the sinfulness of earthly life, or to the visual culture of ruins, which served as a vanitas reminder of mortality. The task of the art historian is to link the image to its time, understanding it as part of larger social and institutional structures.