Huilend kind 1670 - 1680

Editor: We're looking at Gerard de Lairesse's "Huilend kind," or "Crying Child," a pencil and charcoal drawing from around 1670-1680. The mood strikes me as intensely private, almost voyeuristic in capturing a child's vulnerability. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Ah, yes, a tiny tempest contained in charcoal. You know, sometimes I imagine myself in that dark space with him. He is swaddled not in a blanket, but by his grief; there is something universally human about that contained weeping. De Lairesse catches it all with such delicate and sure strokes. Editor: So, is that deliberate, the baroque style lending itself to emotional display? Curator: Precisely! The Baroque period, with its heightened drama, really pushed artists to explore emotional extremes. It's almost as if de Lairesse wanted to give a glimpse of what's brewing within the child – this raw interior life bubbling up to the surface, a life lived fully in one single drawing. Editor: It definitely captures that sense of internal struggle. Did he create it as study for a larger piece or was this the complete vision? Curator: A delicious question! Given its intimate scale and the expressiveness, it's reasonable to think of this as a study. Maybe exploring sentimentality, using a simple composition before blowing it up for something grander, like he was warming up before taking a polar plunge into his artistic self! But that simplicity and purity makes it magnificent and I find it quite charming in itself. Don't you think so? Editor: Absolutely, that restrained emotion really makes you feel for him, in its own way! I have a whole new way of relating to preparatory sketches, seeing it not as less-than but uniquely affecting! Curator: Fantastic! Now we get to walk off and continue looking!