Balalaika speler bij herders 1769

Editor: Here we have Jean-Baptiste Leprince's "Balalaika Player with Shepherds" from 1769, an ink and engraving print. The monochrome style makes it feel very dreamlike and sentimental, like a snapshot of a memory. What catches your eye when you look at it? Curator: The texture, for me. The artist captured this scene as though through muslin—that hazy atmosphere softens the edges. He used, they say, a burin and roulette to render this drawing with layered textures and tones of velvety light. The rococo style here has none of that rigid formalism, so to speak; it's tender, romantic, and subtly expressive of gesture and posture. What do you make of it? Editor: That's a cool thought about Rococo, since I usually see it as super decadent. Here, the balalaika player reminds me of wandering troubadours in old fairy tales. There’s this balance of carefree joy with subtle longing in the expressions of the listeners, don’t you think? Curator: Yes! Leprince saw himself, or liked to fashion himself as a wandering "artiste." He made many images of what were deemed at the time as exotic Russians. But there's an ambiguity to all this—like what the French thought of as truly Russian versus their imagined idyllic. And how did that then shape his printmaking? I wonder about it a lot. Editor: That’s fascinating to consider – the artist filtering the world through imagination. It makes me want to reconsider other landscapes of the period too, searching for that personal perspective. Curator: Precisely! To recognize that a Rococo idyll could hold complex gazes between artist and subject and the buyer of such prints! It tickles my brain, and warms my heart.