Man met kruk ruziënd met een andere man 17th century

This small, undated print by an anonymous artist depicts two men in the midst of a heated dispute, captured in stark lines. The most striking element here is the basket of stones being upended, a crude but powerful gesture of aggression. This act of heaping stones upon another echoes ancient forms of punishment and shaming, rituals where stones were instruments of justice, or, perhaps more viscerally, of communal rage. Consider how this motif recurs in other contexts: the stoning of blasphemers, or even children’s games where stones become missiles in mock battles. The act of throwing stones encapsulates a primal urge to wound and defile, a collective expression of animosity. What we see here is not merely a squabble, but a manifestation of deeply rooted human impulses, a symbolic unleashing of pent-up aggression that transcends time, reminding us of the cyclical nature of conflict and the enduring power of symbols to evoke primal emotions.