Peer Gynt 10 1890

Theodor Severin Kittelsen created this drawing, titled Peer Gynt 10. A man with a net confronts another man, in what appears to be a wild, desolate landscape. The net—a symbol for capturing, ensnaring—appears across time. Think of the fisherman casting his net in biblical stories, promising bounty yet also implying a certain treachery, a deception of the waters. Now, consider the butterfly net, often wielded by a figure of science or curiosity, aiming to grasp fleeting beauty, to categorize and control nature. But is there not a violence in this act of capture? Here, the net-wielding figure, gaunt and severe, challenges the traveler. His action, on a subconscious level, provokes thought, stirring in the depths of our collective memory—a tension between the desire to understand and the inherent risk of destroying the very essence of what we seek. In different epochs and cultural tapestries, it resurfaces, this symbol evolves, never quite escaping its primal roots.