Het feest der Vestiging der Constitutie op 19 mei, 1798 Possibly 1798

Curator: So, here we have "The Celebration of the Establishment of the Constitution on 19 May, 1798," tentatively dated to that year and crafted by Jurriaan Andriessen. You get such a sense of the event through his pen, ink, and pencil. Editor: My first impression is wistful detachment, really. The figures in the foreground are observing rather than participating; they are dark masses set against this delicate cityscape teeming with, well, controlled joy. Curator: Controlled is a good word. Andriessen, a real product of his time, employs that Neoclassical precision. It's a drawing, so the materiality feels light. However, consider the labour! All those tiny pen strokes to give a feeling of the sheer size of Amsterdam’s Dam Square on that momentous day. You see the maypole there, of course. Editor: Oh, it looks almost ghostly, a slender emblem against the architecture, dwarfed despite its central placement. I get the feeling it is less about celebrating the *now*, but all the effort of creating it! Curator: I love that reading! But also note the ordinary Dutch Golden Age style mixed with Romanticism. It reflects this tension, right? Between sober historical accuracy and a yearning for revolutionary ideals. Do you think he would buy those ideals or is simply describing things that he is seeing in Amsterdam? Editor: That is interesting because the tension itself, isn’t it a product of materials? Ink, paper, pen. The availability, affordability, all influence the capacity for widespread artistic documentation, thus helping construct this narrative, not just recording it. How readily available was ink to artists who could record things and become observers rather than makers? Curator: A wonderful point! I do think that his role, as a maker is something really personal. The people become, at the same time, individualized and collective, all those people working together, is really what he is celebrating and feeling. It reminds me that celebrating means taking a collective effort to put those people and places together in one big experience. Editor: Yes. The materials allowed Andriessen to capture, comment, even participate in defining the public experience itself. A nice perspective from this vantage point that lets us think on the experience.