ABSTRACT
Throughout the centuries, artists employed many models to picture inundations. The most often cited are depictions of mythical, biblical, and historical floods. In addition, artists sometimes used unexpected but equally dramatic models. In 1754 the prolific eighteenth-century draughtsman and printmaker Simon Fokke designed an image of recent dyke breaches for the triweekly periodical Nederlandsche jaerboeken. Prominently depicted in the foreground of Fokke’s image is a map of the flooded region. This element of a map, with mourning cherubs on either side, recalls religious, specifically Catholic, imagery that centralises the dead body of Christ. Arguably, Fokke used these images of pity to depict the land as a tangible and suffering body in order to evoke feelings of compassion. Hence, the depiction encouraged viewers to extend these feelings of empathy towards a part of the country where they may not have resided themselves, in keeping with the synthesising goals of the periodical.
