Pastoral Landscape with Ruins and a Ford Netherlands

Pastoral Landscape with Ruins and a Ford

1722

Gerhardt Janssen

(Dutch, 1636–1725)

Netherlands

etching and open-bite on laid paper

Image and Plate: 15.8 x 22.2 cm (6 1/4 x 8 3/4 in.); Sheet: 19.2 x 28.1 cm (7 9/16 x 11 1/16 in.)

Jo Hershey Selden Fund 2022.51

Catalogue raisonné: Nagler, Monogrammisten II, no. 3100, 4, Wurzbach 4

Location: not on view

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Did You Know?

This print was made from an iron print plate that was etched in acid in stages, creating a textured, almost corrosive effect.

Description

Janssen’s prints depict figures, trees, and architectural details rendered light against a dark background, a reverse effect of the typical etching of the period, which reminds our modern eye of a photographic negative. The artist might have been familiar with such a reversal of light and dark through the practice of reverse glass painting, in which he was trained, and indeed, the figures glow with an idiosyncratic solarizing effect, almost as if they are part of a window. The technique was apparently invented by Janssen and is unique in early modern art.