De zomer 1670 - 1724

Curator: Standing before us is "De Zomer", or "The Summer," an engraving etched sometime between 1670 and 1724, currently residing here at the Rijksmuseum. Its author is Jacob Gole. Editor: Right away, there’s a dreamlike quality. The monochrome tones almost feel like memory. A stately figure holds centre, but there's something both grand and intimate here, like a theatre piece viewed from very far away, the lone farmer gives her a touch of humanity somehow, don't you think? Curator: Absolutely, that lone figure. Jacob Gole captures an allegory of summer through portraiture, but rooted in this rich landscape tradition, the figure in the center is an embodiment, summer personified. Notice the ears of wheat she delicately holds? The crown made of foliage. They are common attributes, symbols of harvest and abundance, eternal visual cues. Editor: The composition too – half portrait, half genre scene. The wheat even spills onto her dress like an exquisite garland. There's this constant interplay between human and natural elements, really grounding that allegory in tangible beauty. That is if you accept allegories can be tangible. Curator: Gole was very skillful in manipulating textures through the printmaking medium, and those textures reinforce the idea that beauty resides both in the finery and grandeur of this imagined noble and within reach out in the far fields where hard work leads to fruition. There's a feeling of nature's opulence spilling out of the dark of the forest. Editor: It makes you wonder how seasonal allegories resonate now. We expect instant gratification, constant production, climate chaos, you name it. We seem to be more detached than ever before. Seeing it reminds me we were not born with that detachment: that seasonal allegories continue to mean much if we dare allow it, perhaps... a feeling of grounding? Curator: Yes, the ability of symbols and images to resonate through generations really does reveal aspects of what we might even dare to call our shared, cross-generational unconscious. To imagine what summer meant to people three centuries ago... It all adds new depth, especially when contrasted against how summer unfolds today. Editor: A reflective echo, perhaps, of something profound we forgot.