Pleasures of Occupation 1620 - 1684

Curator: This is Cornelis Bloemaert's "Pleasures of Occupation," a rather unflinching etching and engraving likely made sometime between 1620 and 1684. You can currently find it hanging out at the Metropolitan Museum. Editor: Wow, okay. First impression? Debauchery. Pure, unadulterated, beautifully rendered debauchery. The sheer volume of stuff—the hats, the jugs, the questionable puddles… Curator: Indeed. Look at the varying textures Bloemaert achieves with just line work! Notice the cross-hatching giving weight to those oversized hats and loosely draped garments. What are they made from, I wonder? Likely some cheap, easily accessible material... linen, perhaps? Mass-produced but meticulously rendered here, elevating the everyday. Editor: Elevating? Are we sure? These figures seem deliberately…low. The guy face-down, well past tipsy, basically communing with the earth – he looks like a discarded sack. The tools of their trade, those flagons and musical instrument, they don't appear noble. There's a gritty social commentary in there, questioning leisure and excess in equal measure. Curator: Ah, but perhaps there's a flicker of empathy too. I imagine the air thick with the drone of a cheap flute and shared stories. To me, these “pleasures” point to simple joys grabbed in the midst of hardscrabble lives. A shared oblivion can bind us to ourselves, to each other—not noble, perhaps, but deeply human, no? Look closer – even their discarded bone offers us a certain clue. They’re connected by common necessity, an awareness of the grind from which, briefly, they break free. Editor: That connection’s manufactured though. Alcohol, music—fleeting means of escape. We should look at this print and see the materiality of addiction itself: the distillation process, the affordability of liquor compared to water... It all shapes who gets to experience such 'pleasures,' and who suffers. The means of distribution... these are clues. Curator: Interesting. Perhaps the "pleasures" are actually chains, forged of base metals but glimmering seductively nonetheless. Food for thought. Editor: Exactly! Let us observe what remains as residue.