Straatlantaarn 1674 - 1679

Curator: This drawing, dating from 1674 to 1679, is titled "Straatlantaarn," or "Streetlight," and it comes to us from the hand of Jan van der Heyden. It currently resides here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Striking. Even with the sketch-like quality, there’s a remarkable monumentality to this street lamp. It looms almost like an obelisk against the blank page. Curator: Indeed. Consider the historical context: the burgeoning Dutch cities of the Golden Age, investing heavily in infrastructure and civic amenities. This wasn’t just any lamp; it represented progress, security, and communal well-being. Its geometric perfection, captured here in pencil, served a practical function: casting light into the darkness to serve and to signal power. Editor: Power certainly emanates from its sheer presence within the frame. And look at the precision of the linework. The formal structure and geometry are captivating; the semiotics, in the architectural sense, highlight a harmonious balance between function and decoration. Van der Heyden has meticulously presented a lamppost’s very structure. Curator: Absolutely. Van der Heyden’s skill lies in elevating what was essentially street furniture into an object worthy of artistic study. Pencil was inexpensive and plentiful. Think about the labor of the lamplighters themselves. They filled the lamps, lit them each evening, navigated the city by foot. Their work went hand in hand with safety, social organization and class difference of this developing economy. Editor: That materiality also emphasizes the temporal element. The artist, with their choices of medium, created something quite still out of something useful that, for the common folk, provided a fleeting moment. Curator: Yes, the pencil’s ability to record these fleeting structures makes Van der Heyden’s drawings lasting emblems of their moment. What a wonderful example of daily life in Baroque-era Holland. Editor: A powerful rendering of function and the simple beauty of line! Curator: And also an emblem of larger networks of people whose hard work went hand in hand with this burgeoning technology.