Landscape with Runaway Horses 1638

Ercole Bazicaluva made this print called "Landscape with Runaway Horses" sometime in the early to mid-17th century. The naturalistic landscape is not as simple as it seems; it reflects the cultural values of its time. Made in Italy, this etching blends idealized nature with scenes of everyday life. We see runaway horses and a man with a dog running alongside a rural settlement. Seventeenth-century Italian art often served the interests of wealthy patrons and the church, promoting an image of a harmonious social order. But artists like Bazicaluva also engaged with the rising interest in natural sciences and empirical observation, using their art to study and document the world around them. Prints like this one allowed for wider distribution of such imagery. To understand this work fully, one would want to consider the histories of printmaking, the patronage system, and the period’s changing relationship to the natural world. It reminds us that art is always enmeshed in the social and institutional contexts of its time.