Wandering With Dutch Artists

Many Dutch artists of the 1600s left their studios to wander the world around them. 

They roamed their local streets, passed through the city gates, and walked down to the sea or out into the countryside. They saw laborers and animals, ships and dwellings, festivals and fellow travelers. They took their sketchbooks with them to record what they saw, and the etchings inspired by these drawings created a boom in armchair tourism—an experience akin to watching travel and nature on television today. Some artists kept right on walking, arriving in distant lands such as Italy or Norway. 

Their work invites us to slow down, join in their journeys, and contemplate our own.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website