Rechte lijn die een cirkel raakt met onderaan een stadsgezicht 1669

Curator: Alright, let's get started! Editor: We're looking at "Rechte lijn die een cirkel raakt met onderaan een stadsgezicht" – which Google tells me translates to 'straight line touching a circle with a cityscape below’—an engraving by Sébastien Leclerc I from 1669, here at the Rijksmuseum. It's interesting seeing a city-scene almost diagrammatically displayed like this! I’m curious, what’s your initial reading of a piece like this? It's quite unusual. Curator: Isn't it though? It’s easy to dismiss as merely technical, but for me, there's a wonderful blend of worlds happening here. Think about it—mathematics, the epitome of order, imposed upon the seemingly organic, rambling form of a cityscape. The city, usually chaotic, is grounded, given structure, by that unwavering geometric form. Do you notice how that straight line is essentially touching—"raakt," as the title suggests—the idealized circle? Almost as if it were the very keystone holding everything together. Editor: That makes sense. It feels almost like a formula for the perfect city, in a way. So, is this meant to be an instruction manual or a commentary on how urban spaces are actually built? Curator: Perhaps a bit of both, wouldn’t you agree? We're talking about the 17th century here. There’s this real thirst for reason, order, scientific explanation—it's the age of exploration, the rise of rationalism. Maybe Leclerc is inviting us to imagine the city, not just as a place to live, but as a system that can be understood, designed, perhaps even… perfected, with a geometric harmony, like music or math itself. Of course, the joke is: cities always resist, evolve beyond such simple geometric order; isn't that so human? Editor: That’s a perspective shift for sure, thinking of cities as mathematical problems. It almost turns city planning into an artistic endeavor in itself. I'll never look at urban sprawl the same way! Curator: Absolutely! It’s a little reminder that everything—even a bustling city—has underlying principles waiting to be uncovered. What a delicious contradiction.