Meridies (Middag) 1693

Curator: Ah, the unbearable lightness of being hot! My immediate sense when seeing this drawing by Samuel Bottschild titled "Meridies (Middag)" from 1693, is one of delicious, drowsy heat. Don't you think? Editor: Absolutely. The midday sun is almost a tangible character here. I find the visual language quite fascinating—it feels deeply rooted in established symbolic traditions, but re-imagined. Curator: He looks a bit grumpy, though, doesn't he? Perched up there amidst the clouds. Almost inconvenienced by the sheer volume of sunshine erupting from that solar face! And ink on paper, such a simple, elegant way to catch the sublime drama of a summer noon. Editor: It’s an allegory, after all. Winged figure representing midday is rendered, I think, very powerfully. Consider the torch he holds—not a symbol of illumination but intense heat and brightness. The parasol too… a shield from the sun. Together they are powerful symbols for a particular moment in the temporal and emotional experience. Curator: It does make you think, doesn't it? About time itself, and our relationship to these grand, sweeping cycles of days and nights and heat waves. About how humanity always seeks these tangible symbols to pin it all down. Bottschild manages that with the most minimal materials, black ink on off-white paper. The textures and shading suggest volume but with barely there lines. Amazing economy! Editor: And that sun-face peering out— a fascinating piece of iconography. It’s playful and even slightly menacing. It underscores a visual language—faces within spheres, symbols held as embodiments of celestial events and cycles. I like how Bottschild plays with that—almost with a wry humor. Curator: Almost as if he knew we’d be standing here centuries later dissecting his symbols! What I take from "Meridies (Middag)" then is not just that sleepy sense of heat, but that constant human impulse to grasp and depict the unknowable, and that time just relentlessly steams on past any of our little labels for it. Editor: Yes. Perhaps art like this becomes part of our very own cultural and visual reservoir, resonating long past the original context. "Meridies (Middag)", a moment of the past, preserved for midday contemplation today.