Klippelandskab i en storm 1645 - 1714

Curator: This print by Albert Meyering, dating sometime between 1645 and 1714, is called *Klippelandskab i en storm*, or "Rocky Landscape in a Storm." Editor: My first impression is a sense of theatrical drama. The stark contrasts created through etching give it a very pronounced visual energy. It feels almost like a stage set. Curator: Exactly. Notice how the stormy setting becomes a backdrop for examining the symbolic power of nature's chaos. You have the trees bending in the wind, rain falling, and this is set against the symbols of civilization: architecture, grazing cattle, and figures struggling against the storm. The entire scene speaks to themes of impermanence and the insignificance of humans versus the sublime power of the natural world. Editor: The composition also guides your eye with great effectiveness, with the sharp diagonal lines leading towards the illuminated buildings at the vanishing point. The details like the layered inking that gives shape and dimension, that gives shape and shadow – wonderful use of line. Curator: It is worth reflecting on how baroque artists, especially landscape artists like Meyering, were interested in representing not just what they saw but what they felt. Storms held significant religious meaning as divine interventions, or displays of God's strength and even wrath, perhaps reflecting on that feeling in the wake of The Thirty Years War and related calamites during Meyering's lifetime. Editor: True, and even without understanding those specific historical symbols, you feel that turbulence in the artwork's DNA through its form alone: the way the light flickers, and that frenetic quality of the line work. You can just read this storm. Curator: The etching allows that visual storytelling, doesn't it? He controls our emotions by the interplay between light and dark in the composition. Editor: He truly does. I now find I’m noticing how the linear forms contribute a sense of urgency and precarity. Even down to the single figure bent to fight the wind; I now feel it must contain something of myself in that figure. Curator: The dynamism within it is something, that's for sure. Editor: Indeed, Albert Meyering crafted not only a visual piece, but also a narrative about our relationship with nature. Thank you.