School vissen en een snoek c. 1901

Editor: So, this pencil drawing, "School vissen en een snoek" by Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof, was created around 1901. It's a simple sketch on lined paper, but I find it kind of unsettling, this predator looming over the smaller fish. What do you see in this piece, particularly from a social perspective? Curator: I see a power dynamic visualized. It's impossible to ignore how Dijsselhof positions the pike—dominant, surveilling. The “school vissen” below it become a collective body under threat. Considering the period, around 1901, what social anxieties do you think might be reflected in representing the natural world in this way? Editor: Maybe a fear of some overbearing authority? Or the anxieties surrounding industrial growth crushing smaller entities? Curator: Exactly! Think about it: The rise of monopolies, anxieties about class warfare… Dijsselhof presents a microcosm of these concerns. The sketchbook context also matters, right? This isn't a finished painting. It feels like a raw, immediate response. How does the medium itself—pencil on paper—contribute to your understanding? Editor: It makes it feel vulnerable, like a fleeting thought captured. The roughness contrasts so starkly with the usual idealized landscapes. Curator: Precisely. Dijsselhof rejects any picturesque illusion. He exposes the tension and precariousness embedded in these power structures, refusing to let us look away from these dynamics. What do you make of the empty space around the sketched figures? Editor: The emptiness amplifies the feeling of vulnerability of the school of fish, how isolated they are under this lurking danger. I guess I hadn’t really considered how a simple sketch of fish could hold so much social commentary! Curator: These ‘simple’ depictions are always tied to broader questions of cultural power, anxieties and social dynamics! That's where art history gets exciting, for me anyway.