Illustratie voor 'Den Arbeid van Mars' van Allain Manesson Mallet 1672

Curator: Welcome. We're looking at an engraving dating back to 1672, a piece titled 'Illustration for 'Den Arbeid van Mars' by Allain Manesson Mallet'. It is currently held at the Rijksmuseum. The artist here is Romeyn de Hooghe. Artist: Wow, that's… intense! The top half looks like architectural diagrams gone wild. And down below, a miniature epic unfolding! It gives off this peculiar feeling of precision and chaos coexisting. Like a dream within a textbook, maybe? Curator: It's fascinating how de Hooghe juxtaposes the ostensibly rational diagrams with a figurative landscape below. This intersection might hint at the complex relationship between warfare, which is symbolized by Mars, labor, and the burgeoning scientific approach to the world at the time. How warfare becomes industrialized. Artist: Industrialized warfare—chilling thought! Those geometric shapes… almost like blueprints for forts or siege engines, sucking the life out of that miniature landscape below. The figures seem so small, lost in the face of this grand, mathematical… march toward doom? Or is it just me being melodramatic? Curator: No, not melodramatic at all! It evokes a common sentiment in post-Westphalian Europe—a shift toward calculated statecraft and constant military preparedness. It's critical to acknowledge how these systems disproportionately affected marginalized communities then, just as now. This interplay highlights a transition towards the quantification and objectification inherent in militarization. Artist: Precisely! Even the ink seems… cold. I can almost smell gunpowder and ink, feel the scratch of the etching needle on the plate. There's something inherently unsettling about this blend of cold geometry and human drama. It almost mocks us with its detached precision. Curator: In conclusion, what we're seeing is more than just an illustration. It encapsulates emerging structures of power, where military endeavors were undergoing radical technical systematization, with all its ethical implications. Artist: Absolutely. This piece certainly scratched beneath my surface, provoking a strange, unsettling brew of awe, unease, and grudging admiration for de Hooghe's ability to make math feel so… ominous.