Stier, naar rechts, met kerktoren op achtergrond c. 1649 - 1677

Curator: Oh, there's a stoic beauty to this etching. It’s by Marcus de Bye, titled "Stier, naar rechts, met kerktoren op achtergrond"—"Bull, facing right, with a church tower in the background." It’s from somewhere between 1649 and 1677. Editor: It strikes me immediately as intensely grounded. The bulk of the animal, the texture almost coarse, especially against the faint silhouette of the church. Curator: The realism is something, isn’t it? Look at how the light catches the lines of its musculature. It's interesting that De Bye chose etching as his medium. Makes you think about the production… the acid, the wax. Editor: Exactly. It democratizes the image somehow. Printing, editions… a connection to a broader public beyond, say, a single commissioned painting for the wealthy. This labor-intensive, repeatable image is, dare I say, radically accessible? Curator: Radically bovine, perhaps? Sorry, I had to! But you're right, there’s a sort of… egalitarian earthiness. Yet that tiny church spire on the horizon does introduce a certain sense of established order, a hint of hierarchy, which, in tension with the laboring class… Editor: Mmm, that visual dichotomy intrigues me too. That delicate line of the church plays against the bull's mass. Which element "towers" over the other—power vs. sustenance? It also speaks to how Dutch Golden Age landscapes often incorporated human elements within nature. It doesn't celebrate untamed wilderness. Curator: Instead it tames. De Bye reframes reality, the way artists can—he shows us a particular, poignant way of seeing. Maybe through this very bull’s eyes! The image carries such weight…I can feel the hot summer dust. Editor: Yes, it's that grounding. These Dutch Golden Age landscapes offer complex negotiations of rural life. Food supply, the natural world subdued, belief systems, and social order all rubbing shoulders… literally and figuratively! All created through exacting, material processes of art making. Curator: Well said. Thank you for that…perspective. I'll never look at a cow quite the same way again. Editor: The pleasure was all mine. Now, off to ruminate, I suppose?