Het wassen van de ezel 1595 - 1605

Curator: Look at this remarkable engraving, dating back to the late 16th or early 17th century. It’s called "The Washing of the Ass," attributed to Gillis van Breen, and it lives here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: My goodness, it's wonderfully chaotic! I get a feeling of bustling, slightly absurd activity just by looking at all the figures crammed around this one bewildered-looking donkey. It is like a darkly comic scene... Curator: The sheer physicality of the engraving emphasizes process. I notice the labor implied, with all those hands attempting to clean the animal and various tools laying at their feet—a little trough, bucket. What's being washed here is not so important as how it becomes, symbolically, materially, clean. Editor: Symbolically clean, yes, it's a fascinating detail! It almost makes me wonder if they're washing something *onto* the donkey, not off of it, if that makes sense? All that effort seems like it could be misguided, obsessive even. A warning maybe, about superficial change. Curator: It touches upon this tension of high art against craft. Engraving itself, and certainly washing an animal, involved skilled labor in the production of… meaning, perhaps? Each line on that print made deliberately! What purpose that serves or the impact of mass producing art for different social classes must be questioned. Editor: The textures—the rough fur of the donkey, the simple cloth of their garments—speak to me of everyday life made suddenly strange. Almost like an allegory. It all circles back to that wonderfully befuddled ass. There is just something about its sad gaze that is just compelling, you know? Like a gentle sigh. Curator: And in making images available at multiple social levels and for the ages to come, van Breen’s print practice opens a real, physical window. That materiality is fundamental to interpretation and appreciating art in an everyday sense. Editor: An opening that is as layered, rich and ultimately humorous as the soap scum those chaps are trying so earnestly to scrub off. I shall see this washing scene a lot differently in the future now, for sure!