Malus domestica (almindelig æble) 1649 - 1659

Hans Simon Holtzbecker made this drawing of two apples, in pen and watercolor, during the 17th century, a time of great scientific discovery and exploration. Holtzbecker worked as a botanical artist where detailed depictions of plants were not simply aesthetic; they were crucial for scientific documentation and understanding, fitting into a cultural moment that valued empirical observation and cataloging the natural world. The image is ostensibly of two apples but, if we consider Holtzbecker’s role in documenting nature, the image becomes an assertion of humanity's urge to classify and control nature. The seemingly objective depiction of the apples is laden with the politics of knowledge. The apples, as symbols of nature, become objects of study, divorced from their natural context. They are stripped of their history and ecosystem, reduced to specimens on a page. Consider the colonial implications, where the act of documentation was intertwined with power dynamics, influencing how we understand both nature and culture. The image asks us to consider what it means to observe, document, and ultimately, define the world around us.