Teun de jager bij het lijk van Zijtje 1849 - 1905

Curator: Ah, another fascinating, albeit somber, work before us. This is a drawing attributed to Ferdinand Carl Sierich, titled “Teun de jager bij het lijk van Zijtje,” placing its creation somewhere between 1849 and 1905. It seems to be a pencil and watercolour piece. Editor: It feels utterly still, doesn’t it? Like holding your breath at a grim discovery. A hunter and children around a body. The greyscale palette enhances the feeling of somber weight, an emotional chill. And that dog staring—intense!— into some invisible spot, makes me so so curious. Curator: It's difficult to say who "Zijtje" actually was, of course. What station or role. Given the time period and the setting it suggests a rural tragedy; a moment of disrupted social harmony depicted here, the death intruding into the ordinary rhythms of life, I'd wager a servant or possibly even an indentured servant is in the mix here.. Editor: Exactly! There’s something profoundly unsettling about seeing innocence confronted by death. It is the juxaposition between those elements that just breaks the heart in this case.. You can see their hesitant postures; the weight of that understanding landing. Artistically, Sierich uses shadow so well to emphasize it. Like it darkens even the minds and souls of these characters as they realize what is at hand, an ominous tone in place now. Curator: The work speaks to themes prevalent at the time, particularly anxieties around class, mortality, and the natural world’s indifference to human life, I am convinced, this artist had that concept in the forefront here. The stiff presentation of social class divides even in grief. Consider the rural narratives gaining popularity in literature. The setting, the composition—it's all suggestive of a narrative embedded in social commentary. Editor: I keep coming back to the light, too. A harsh daylight exposing the brutality in death, as if the light has turned conspirator in this grim scene. And I love how raw and unrefined it feels; that sketch-like quality captures something almost vulnerable and honest. It reminds me, funnily enough, of a theatre set under construction, where the tragedy still remains to take its final form. Curator: The imperfections give it a kind of truth that more polished works might lack. I like the way that the eye is not drawn directly to the main event in this tragic theater unfolding as it slowly reveals itself Editor: I see what you mean. A slow reveal for us viewers mirroring, perhaps, the children's growing horror in what lies before them. What a potent piece about that raw interface with human morality. Curator: Indeed. It invites reflection on mortality but perhaps also social inequalities made plain and unarguable by such final, leveling events. Editor: So very powerful. Such that leaves a haunting echo long after one has moved away from the work.