Afbeeldingen van vogels en dieren / Planche d´oiseaux et d´animaux 1800 - 1833

Curator: This captivating print, titled "Afbeeldingen van vogels en dieren / Planche d'oiseaux et d'animaux," dates back to somewhere between 1800 and 1833. The artist goes by the name of William Brown. It employs a blend of drawing and engraving techniques, brought to life with delicate washes of watercolor. Editor: My first thought? A wunderkammer on paper! A cabinet of curiosities flattened and inked. The composition, fractured into vignettes, gives a lovely sense of organised chaos. It reminds me of flipping through the pages of old, wonderfully odd encyclopedias. Curator: Precisely! The very structure reflects a Linnaean desire to classify and categorize. Notice the meticulous detail given to each specimen, prioritizing an almost scientific accuracy in form, if not in colour. This is a testament to the period's burgeoning interest in the natural world, viewed through a lens of empirical observation. Editor: But isn’t it charmingly imperfect? Take the lion for example. Its posture is so stiff, as if it's posing self-consciously for the artist. There's a naiveté here, a sense of wonder that transcends pure scientific document. It’s more poetry than taxonomy. And the bizarre color choices—yellow and teal highlights on a grey substrate! It’s unexpectedly stylish, in a way I can't quite explain. Curator: That “imperfection” I’d argue, lends it a crucial aesthetic tension. These colours serve not to imitate nature faithfully, but to heighten our awareness of the artifice inherent in representation. Each figure is flattened and re-presented through semiotic encoding in relation to another figure or animal, calling our attention back to the artwork’s essential “object-ness.” Editor: Ah, I see it now—that strange juxtaposition between realism and something almost fantastical. This artwork manages to be both informative and dreamlike, making one think about how knowledge, fantasy, and art-making were intimately connected centuries ago. A gorgeous artefact of scientific curiosity melded with sheer artistic invention. Curator: It's this complex interplay between objective observation and subjective expression that keeps this image visually and conceptually relevant even centuries after its creation. Editor: A playful memento from a bygone era where our understanding of our relationship with nature, the planet, was starting to take root.