Keurvorstelijk Slot te Berlijn 1685 - 1695

Editor: This delicate drawing in watercolor, "Keurvorstelijk Slot te Berlijn," made between 1685 and 1695 by Jan van Call, shows a stately palace on a river. It has a rather placid mood for such a grand structure. What do you see in this piece? Curator: I see a deliberate construction of power and its performance, carefully situated within a budding urban landscape. It is rendered using the conventions of Baroque landscape, yet ask yourself, whose perspective is privileged here? Is it the royal family inside, or the people outside, whose labor sustains this vision? Editor: I hadn't thought of that. The symmetry seems to project stability, almost like propaganda. Curator: Exactly. And consider Berlin's history. This palace was built as the seat of the Hohenzollern electors, later Prussian kings. Doesn't the ordered architecture, with its implication of control over nature and the city, tell a story about the imposition of power structures? The round framing seems to suggest something about lenses, something that controls our views and perspectives. Editor: So it's not just a pretty picture. It communicates ideas about class and control? Curator: Precisely. Visual representations like this help shape and solidify social hierarchies. The cityscape, carefully rendered, reinforces the legitimacy and dominance of the ruling elite and asks us to consider whose stories and realities were purposefully omitted or marginalized in favor of this official narrative? Editor: That gives me a lot to think about in terms of representation. I hadn’t considered the lens of power shaping the perspective. Curator: These images function as complex documents and ideological battlegrounds, don't they?