Zeilschepen, een roeiboot en een stoomschip op een rivier 1880 - 1913

Editor: Here we have Henri Seghers's "Zeilschepen, een roeiboot en een stoomschip op een rivier," created sometime between 1880 and 1913, using pencil on paper as both drawing and print. I'm struck by the contrast of old and new with both sailboats and steamboats present, but I wonder what exactly makes it a 'print'? Curator: Notice the labor that goes into this piece. It's not just a quick sketch. Consider how a print allows for reproducibility, essentially democratizing the image. How does the implied industrial nature of printmaking contrast with the hand-drawn quality? Editor: That's an interesting tension – this combination of reproduction via printing with the handmade nature of the original drawing. So it's a mediation, rather than something purely mechanical? Curator: Precisely. And what does that mediation tell us about the changing landscape, both literally and culturally, during the industrial revolution? Here we have this depiction of the changing methods and production for travel along the river which had huge implications on culture. Look how detailed and deliberate his technique had to be! What aspects speak most to the viewer today? Editor: I think the overlapping images and attention to materials gives it such a special texture... but I appreciate the nuance and work of it after discussing the production as a material process. Curator: Exactly, we're reminded that even a seemingly simple image carries complex material and social histories within it. Editor: I'll certainly think differently now about the "labor" present in something so seemingly subtle.