Achttien edelen te Brussel onthoofd, 1568 1588

Editor: This is “Eighteen Nobles Beheaded in Brussels, 1568” by Frans Hogenberg, created in 1588 using printmaking techniques and watercolors. It depicts, well, what the title suggests: a public execution. There is almost something festive about it. What jumps out at you? Curator: Festive, yes, in the sense that public rituals often are. Notice the flags, the positioning of the figures – a kind of choreographed power play. Tell me, what feeling do the architectural elements evoke in you? Editor: A kind of stage, a backdrop? Maybe this represents the solid power of the state against the individuals being punished. Curator: Exactly! The buildings aren't just background; they represent established authority, bearing witness. Think about the emotional weight of that walled-off space behind the scaffold, and that row of pikes behind the crowd… What is being guarded against? Editor: Perhaps both rebellion, but also an uprising? A collective rage? The composition is so busy, too—it’s not simply about the central figures, it’s about power, how it's enforced and witnessed. Curator: Precisely! Hogenberg's print doesn’t shy away from portraying this spectacle as carefully orchestrated, revealing not just the historical event but also the visual language of control and cultural memory of collective trauma. Do you think this imagery would incite or subdue? Editor: That's tough to say. I imagine, in its own time, it may have operated in multiple ways – as a warning, perhaps even a perverse sort of…commemoration? Curator: Yes, an enduring paradox of potent imagery, containing the seeds of fear and possibly, someday, resistance.