Seeing Swamps: Wetlands in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Landscape Images

Abstract

In this dissertation, I contend that the relationship between wetlands and culture is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in landscape images produced in the seventeenth century in Dutch Republic, inclusive of its colonial territories. Over the course of four chapters, I examine various artworks that, in some fashion, depict wetlands, swamps, bogs, fens, marshes, and the like. The aim of this work is to make apparent the formative role of wetlands in the development of Dutch art. In doing so, this dissertation newly considers the reciprocal relationship between environmental and artistic concerns in Dutch landscape images. This dissertation is a first step toward re-envisioning wetland ecosystems, further uniting the discipline of art history with the environmental humanities writ large.