Meubelstuk met een ornamentele pauw c. 1901

Editor: This is Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof's "Meubelstuk met een ornamentele pauw," dating back to about 1901. It's a pen drawing on paper. I find it intriguing, like a peek into the artist's design process. What jumps out at you? Curator: It’s interesting to consider this drawing not just as a design, but as evidence of labor. Look at the materials: paper, pen, likely mass-produced. These choices weren't neutral. The accessibility of these materials democratized art creation, challenging traditional notions of 'high' art, don’t you think? Editor: That's a really interesting angle I hadn’t considered. The simple materials definitely contrast with the ornate peacock design itself. Does the subject matter - the peacock - relate to that tension? Curator: Absolutely. The peacock, often a symbol of luxury and status, is rendered here through relatively inexpensive materials and a fairly straightforward drawing process. This juxtaposition can be viewed as a commentary on the changing social landscape at the turn of the century, a tension between the desire for opulence and the rise of mass production, the availability of products to more of society. Editor: So, by choosing the peacock but rendering it in this way, Dijsselhof is making a statement about art, class, and production itself? Curator: Precisely. The drawing highlights the labor involved in design, pushing back against the romantic notion of the artist as a purely inspired genius, separate from the material world. It encourages us to consider the economic and social context of the work's creation, and the blurring lines between design, craft and fine art at the time. Editor: Wow, I will never look at a simple drawing the same way again. Thinking about it as evidence of social context and the economics of art-making... Curator: Exactly! And that's how a materialist lens can open up a richer understanding of even the simplest work.