Enclosed Valley
To make his dreamy and mysterious landscapes, Hercules Seghers combined a number of etching and coloring techniques in order to make prints that met his expressive ends, and which he considered printed paintings. He created 54 etchings, but instead of producing standardized editions printed in black ink on white paper, he made each impression a unique and individualized work of art. He often printed in colored inks on paper prepared with a colored ground, or on cloth (as here), and then painted the printed impression by hand. Cleveland’s etching is one of only ten known impressions of the f...
Details
- Palette
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Select a color to find related artworks.
- Dimensions
- platemark: height 0.107 m, width 0.19 m
- Origin
- Netherlands
- Department
- Prints
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- John L. Severance Fund
Art Genome Taxonomy
11 tags
Subject Matter
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Landscapes Both · 99%
The composition depicts a mountainous valley with steep rocky slopes, a valley floor, and distant ridges; the catalog title identifies the work as Enclosed Valley.
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Atmospheric Landscapes Visual · 95%
Pale tonal transitions, hazy distant ridges, and the subdued open sky create a pronounced atmospheric recession.
Visual Qualities
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Earth Tones Visual · 99%
The image is dominated by muted brown, gray, beige, and blue-gray tones, including the warm cloth ground visible through the sky and landscape.
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Highly Detailed Visual · 98%
Rock faces, vegetation, valley floor, and distant formations are described with extensive fine hatching and closely spaced etched lines.
Medium and Techniques
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Long Distance and Deep Distance Visual · 96%
The foreground cliffs frame multiple receding layers of terrain that lead toward a distant horizon.
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Hatching Visual · 96%
The landscape is constructed through sustained contouring and dense linear marks, especially across the cliffs and valley floor.
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Prints Metadata · 99%
The Cleveland Museum of Art classifies the object as a print and identifies the medium as an etching on cloth, hand colored with watercolor.
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Etching/Engraving Metadata · 99%
The museum identifies the principal printed technique as etching.
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Watercolor Metadata · 99%
The museum identifies the impression as hand colored with watercolor.
Time Periods
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17th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog dates the work to approximately 1623–30.
Geographic Regions
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Dutch Art Metadata · 99%
The artist is identified as Dutch and the place of origin is listed as the Netherlands.
Source & rights
Hercules Seghers (Dutch, 1589/90–c. 1638). Enclosed Valley. Cleveland Museum of Art.