Gebruik van een meetplank geïllustreerd 1690

Curator: This engraving from 1690, titled "Gebruik van een meetplank geïllustreerd," which translates to "The use of a measuring board illustrated," is by Sébastien Leclerc I and currently resides in the Rijksmuseum. Editor: It's immediately striking how utilitarian it feels, almost diagrammatic. It lacks the drama of the Baroque period, appearing like a page from an instructional manual, but is also fascinating given its exploration of visual geometry and its relation to landscape and built environment. Curator: Indeed. Leclerc was highly regarded by Louis XIV, serving as a royal engraver. This piece demonstrates a blending of artistry and practical application, typical of academic art where the purpose extends beyond pure aesthetic enjoyment. Notice the repetitive figures—almost archetypal humans—engaged in labor. Editor: Right, they're like instruments themselves, facilitating measurement and control. The material reality of creating architectural plans relies on these human actions, the very deliberate use of simple technologies, like boards and line of sight, that would have structured entire labor forces in the pre-digital age. Curator: Absolutely. The perspective is fascinating; multiple scenes are depicted on one plane demonstrating a system of understanding and recreating physical space during a period marked by the rise of scientific rationalism. It presents both practical tools for tradesmen, and evidence of artistic and intellectual currents shaping the European court and, by extension, colonial governance. Editor: Precisely. It makes me consider how images like this were used not just to convey information but to standardize knowledge, reinforcing certain ways of seeing and knowing the world. Its accessibility as a print underscores the spread of these visual methodologies through broader society and beyond. Curator: A valuable intersection between the world of labor, politics, and representation that offers insight into not only art, but the systems of production and social relations. Editor: I'll be thinking about that labor, as well as how systems of knowledge operate with or without an acknowledgment of the individuals responsible for upholding them.