Gevel van het Stadhuis te Oudenaarde before 1881

Curator: Looking at this print, "Gevel van het Stadhuis te Oudenaarde," made before 1881 by an anonymous artist, I feel a curious sense of meticulous obsession. Do you feel it too? Editor: It's overpowering! The density of the etching creates a real monumentality, and the social connotations are obvious. Curator: Yes, the layers of ornamentation! It’s almost dizzying, and definitely meant to impress, maybe intimidate? I see echoes of lace making—all those meticulous patterns in the stone rendered so carefully in print. It suggests a reverence, but also, doesn’t it flatten the architecture, rendering stone into mere surface? Editor: Absolutely. Think about the labour invested here! Both the masons shaping the building, and then the engraver who meticulously reproduces every tiny detail. The act of printing transforms this architecture, taking the real stone into reproduced ink... What social dynamics are at play there, in who could afford such art? Curator: Hmm, good point. These kinds of prints democratized architecture— suddenly, one could own an image of grandeur they might never actually see, maybe it offered a sense of belonging and inspiration... a way to imagine their place in a much wider society. Editor: And now we view it divorced from those conditions... but still marvel at its intense detail and how those processes speak across history. Do you think its emotional effect endures beyond its social use? Curator: Definitely. This print whispers about ambition, about pride. Maybe it hints at the artist’s ambition, the building’s function... a collective reaching for permanence, that somehow survived centuries, embodied through graphic lines and an undeniable aesthetic presence. I can almost smell the ink and the stone, all mixed up. Editor: It truly compresses entire lives into a stark representation. Thanks to this print and our discussion of it, these lives continue to have social presence.