Wet land’s past futures

Abstract

This article introduces the conceptual framework of the volume Wetland. Shaping environments in Netherlandish art and presents a brief state of research. Using three examples – the loss of woodlands and its impact on painting, Dutch hydrological technology in the service of the colonization of Brazil, and the surge of a new Land art in the Netherlands in the face of climate change – the authors highlight the contemporaneity of early modern representations of Netherlandish landscapes against the background of ecological crisis.