Badkoetsen te Scheveningen Possibly 1822 - 1828

Curator: Pieter Bartholomeusz. Barbiers' pen and ink drawing, possibly from the 1820s, depicts 'Badkoetsen te Scheveningen', or Bathing Carts at Scheveningen. Editor: What a wonderfully desolate, windswept scene. It feels almost cinematic, like a still from some lost Romantic film about the woes of early seaside tourism. Curator: The work certainly captures a nascent leisure industry. We see these bathing carts, essentially mobile changing rooms, clustered on the beach. Note the subtle gradations of the ink washes. These techniques helped render texture and form, adding to its Romantic elements, but also document a material history. These carts provided privacy, yes, but also literally mediated interactions with the natural world. Editor: Mediated indeed! It reminds me of a quote I once read – "The sea is a desert with its life in the air," right? And these poor folks are lugging their little covered wagons into that wildness. There is something slightly humorous, even brave, about these little excursions into the bracing unknown. Curator: Precisely. The social class using such specialized transport and beach 'infrastructure', represents the commercialization and class division inherent within this particular Romantic portrayal. What sort of materials are we looking at and who produces them, who maintains the 'infrastructure' enabling leisure for the bourgeois class. Editor: Oh, undeniably, this beach scene also hides whole webs of production and service industries. Though to look at it, you get a feeling of airy solitude, like these fine folks are braving nature itself alone. Deceptive isn’t it? Curator: In every mark we can discover evidence about this place and this era; it makes this landscape both alluring and very instructive, really. Editor: Alluring, indeed. Makes one want to write poetry. Still, this drawing feels deeply melancholic – that gray ink capturing a gray day, where the bathing machines stand still and lonely on the dunes, making me want to put on my scarf. It evokes an idea but, at the same time, exposes its historical and economic foundation. That contrast is a nice touch.