Gezicht op een stad 1825 - 1882

Jacobus Ludovicus Cornet created this ‘View of a City’ with etching techniques. Look at the rising smoke stacks, and observe the church spire piercing the sky. The spire has always been a symbol, reaching for the heavens, a desire for connection with the divine. Consider the Tower of Babel, also an attempt to ascend to the heavens. But here, the city and its church suggest not just a religious aspiration, but something more complex. The smoke, dark and ominous, rising next to the religious spire, is an indication of modernity and the industrial revolution. Are they in conflict? Or are they in harmony? The viewer is invited to ponder whether material progress elevates us, or pulls us further away from grace. We might reflect on the cyclical nature of human ambition. How our aspirations, whether spiritual or material, continuously reshape our world and our understanding of ourselves.