Staande vrouw 1637

Curator: What captures my attention immediately is the vulnerability; the etching of "Standing Woman" created in 1637 by Hendrik van der Borcht II. There's such fragility rendered by those delicate lines, and currently in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. Editor: It feels incomplete somehow, a figure emerging from nothing. Is it a lack of context that gives that feeling of suspended narrative or is it meant to be ambiguous? Curator: Ambiguity definitely feels like part of the point, I think. See how van der Borcht uses the intaglio to build up the darker values and her flowing drapery; it gives this floating quality to the female form. The piece definitely invites us to fill in the blanks with our own emotional response. The figure seems less concerned with conveying a moral tale, and more about capturing a feeling. Editor: The drapery evokes the swirling clouds around allegorical figures; there’s that Baroque drama, but subdued. But if we dig beneath the Baroque drapery and classical form, doesn’t the very act of rendering a nude, standing figure in this way carry its own symbolic weight? Think of the history of representing women in art—often laden with moral judgment, religious significance or, sometimes, purely decorative. Curator: It’s tempting to go there, but I also wonder if it’s possible that this is just someone existing, without needing to stand for something larger. Can a nude simply be? Editor: Perhaps. Yet I am still captivated by what is absent in this print: what's in her gaze, her thoughts as she looks away, the absent story; but also what our perspective reveals about us when we fill it in. It really underlines the image's power to transform and to reflect its audiences. Curator: Right. It's really as if Van der Borcht wanted to explore feeling instead of making an instructive point—leaving it open for anyone to simply…feel. That's a gift. Editor: A gift indeed, one that allows a unique interaction each time. Thank you for guiding us through this artwork!