About

Texts, like images, are central to representations and understandings of the world across cultures. As such, they have long appeared alongside images in artworks, and in some cases, are the artwork's essential characteristic. The earliest work in this online exclusive exhibition is the Allegory of the loss of Arnhem, dated 10 June 1672. In this drawing by Willem van Nijmegen (1636-1698), the historic event of the fall of the Dutch city of Arnhem to the French in 1672, the inscription reveals political and moral authority, as this year became known in Dutch history as the rampjaar, the …