Boerderij c. 1935 - 1936

Cornelis Vreedenburgh made this sketch of a farmhouse using graphite on paper. Vreedenburgh was a Dutch artist who lived through both World Wars, and he made this sketch sometime during his career. The image of a farmhouse is deceptively simple, even quaint. But farmhouses in the Netherlands were highly contested spaces during the Second World War. They often acted as hiding places for people trying to evade the Nazi regime, and they provided shelter for resistance fighters. The sketch shows no signs of conflict. However, the topic of rural life in wartime would have been very familiar to Dutch audiences, as Dutch artists were sometimes enlisted to document life during wartime. Farmhouses were seen as emblematic of Dutch identity, and as places of refuge. To better understand this image, we might look into farmhouses in Dutch painting, photography and propaganda from this period.