Enigmes Joyeuses pour les Bons Esprits 1610 - 1620

Curator: Jan van Haelbeeck's "Enigmes Joyeuses pour les Bons Esprits"—Joyful Riddles for Good Spirits—from around 1610 to 1620, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, uses engraving to conjure a quaint, domestic scene. Editor: Immediately, I’m struck by the detail— the precise lines creating light and shadow. It's a world teeming with hidden stories. The intimacy and domesticity almost belie the density and detail. Curator: It's intimate but pointed, right? Haelbeeck folds in layers. This woman, self-possessed in her labor, spinning… a humble, daily action raised to a potent visual narrative. I feel she’s a kind of queen in her space. The cat under the chair, the eager dog awaiting its treat – it is a symphony of the everyday. Editor: Absolutely, but everyday labor isn't neutral; here we have a woman situated within a space both protected and confined. How complicit is art in idealizing, perhaps even glorifying, this gendered separation of labor and life? I feel a pull between admiration for her focused presence and questioning the constraints of the world that necessitates this scene. Curator: I resonate with your skepticism. Yet, within those very constraints, couldn't this also depict resilience, the carving out of space to control something? There is a world that spills outside that diamond paned window... But here, the world is hers and controlled by her hands... perhaps it is hopeful. What would she write if you handed her a pen, or perhaps I would hand that very pen to the little dog, wouldn't that be fun? Editor: Haha! Oh I love that. You always bring back such beautiful optimism. It’s necessary, honestly. Maybe art like this isn’t so much a mirror reflecting a problematic reality as a portal... where seeing both the restrictions and potential liberations can fuel needed disruptions and change. I will take some hope today and see what doors of our imagination this may unlock. Curator: I am just very glad this old print still makes us think new things, doesn't it?