Students taking part in the Art History BA programme were asked by the RUG to reflect on the interconnection of nature/culture theme through art and landscape. We offered the use of the Jan Menze van Diepen collection.
We invited them to write a short text on an object of their choosing.
The students also wrote a report on how the collection can be made more visible to art history students like themselves.
Their considered response will be most useful in helping to improve access.
Met dank aan Tamara Töreki die koos om te schrijven over een topografisch gezicht van Groningen, 1674 [JMD-T-048][ed. Van Diepen Stichting]:
This print was created during a period when the Dutch Republic, including Groningen, was asserting its power and political autonomy. The image features the largely imagined fortress of Groningen and its surrounding landscape, a city and its environment intertwined in both cultural and political terms.
In the engraving, the city’s silhouette stands against the horizon with its defensive walls and fortifications. The symbol of power and military strength. Yet, the surrounding natural landscape, the river, fields, and meadows, are not presented as distant or irrelevant. They are depicted as an integral component of the city’s identity.
The river, for instance, functions as both a physical and symbolic boundary. It links the city to its networks of trade and military movement while also emphasizing the human ability to control and shape the natural world. The theme of managing nature for practical and defensive purposes was prevalent in Dutch topographical art of the period.
The artists, Ioannes Peeters and Gaspar Bouttats, were prominent figures in the Flemish printmaking tradition, known for their intricate topographical engravings. Peeters, an accomplished engraver, was influenced by the Flemish tradition of blending artistic precision with geographical detail. Bouttats, who is best known for his skill in aqua forti (also called etching), brought a fine level of detail and nuance to the print, capturing the city’s landscape with remarkable clarity.
The figures included in the foreground add an element of human scale and life to the composition. This reinforces the idea of a symbiotic relationship between the people, the city, and the land. The natural world, while depicted with precision, is never separate from the culture it supports; rather, the two are inseparably linked in the creation of this image of Groningen.