Twee putti 1778 - 1838

Curator: Ah, "Twee putti," or "Two Cupids," an ink drawing on paper, made sometime between 1778 and 1838 by Anthonie van den Bos, here in the Rijksmuseum. Editor: It's wispy, dreamlike... like seeing a classical sculpture slowly dissolve in a hazy dawn. Is it unfinished? The linework feels so fragile. Curator: Perhaps intentionally so? The piece certainly echoes the Neoclassical movement. We're looking at an allegorical composition: putti, or cherubic figures, often representing love, are perched amongst clouds, one holding a laurel wreath of victory and the other a spear. Editor: A victor’s wreath paired with a weapon of war… rather contradictory, isn't it? Like a sentimental celebration of conquest. Curator: Perhaps the drawing suggests that love, or perhaps more accurately desire, triumphs even in the face of conflict, or that war is ennobled through a sense of romantic duty. Considering the time period, the image certainly resonates with how conflict was idealized. Editor: So, a very pretty visual shorthand for quite loaded ideological concepts? Curator: Precisely. Art isn't created in a vacuum, of course, and its themes often mirror the aspirations of the patrons and even political undertones of the world at the time it was created. A world of rising empires, grand salons and philosophical debates. These kinds of images gave accessible shape to intangible things. Editor: That does add a certain weight to those seemingly simple lines. Makes me consider the power of symbolism... how an artwork’s light touch could disguise weighty messages of war and legacy. It makes me wonder what messages we embed within seemingly ‘innocent’ images today? Curator: A worthy question. These cupids are still whispering across centuries.