Koppen 1840 - 1880

Curator: Oh my! That's quite a lineup of characters! Makes you wonder what they're all plotting, doesn't it? Editor: It does. Allow me to introduce you to “Koppen,” a work created sometime between 1840 and 1880, by Johannes Tavenraat. It's currently residing here at the Rijksmuseum. As you can see, Tavenraat uses ink on paper to sketch a series of... distinctive faces. Curator: Distinctive is one word for it! I’m seeing a whole cabinet of human grotesqueries. Look at those noses! Each one seems to have a life of its own. And those heavy brows… they remind me of gargoyles perched on some old cathedral. Are we sure this isn’t a page ripped from some mischievous wizard's sketchbook? Editor: Wizards, perhaps! But this approach is very deliberate. I read them as studies in caricature—a deep dive into the exaggeration of human features to reveal, perhaps, underlying personality traits or even social commentary. Caricature has been a longstanding way to capture and also gently mock prevailing trends of its period. Curator: Mockery, yes, there's definitely an edge. Is there fondness? Are we meant to empathize with these chaps, even in their strangeness? The artist walks a wobbly line of making these portraits expressive, and a touch absurd. Editor: That delicate balance is key, I think. Consider how specific attributes—a jutting chin, receding hairline—become potent emblems, almost totemic, telegraphing inner worlds and, further still, projecting shared societal biases. How physical attributes often become metaphors for something beyond. Curator: So these are less about individual portraits and more about the *idea* of certain character types? Like walking, breathing symbols? That makes so much sense when I imagine it in the milieu of its period. You know, thinking about these exaggerated noses and heavy brows as symbolic shorthands – I’m finding it both witty and disturbing. What began as grotesque suddenly feels subtly… human. Editor: Exactly. Even though each is presented in this somewhat exaggerated manner, one does discover these echoes within, shared across time and experience. We carry memory. Curator: Memory that these profiles bring vividly and hilariously to life, and it makes us examine how quickly we judge by appearances, doesn’t it? The power of that inked line!