Het fort Manaar op Ceylon, gezien van de rivier c. 1710

Curator: What a curious atmosphere in this drawing! It almost feels like a half-remembered dream. Editor: Indeed. Today, we are looking at a drawing by Cornelis Steiger, dating from around 1710. The title given to this artwork is "The fort Manaar on Ceylon, seen from the river", it's executed in pen and ink on paper. Curator: Fort Manaar, huh? The artist is trying to offer a bird’s eye view of that strategic trading post? Honestly, the scene’s depiction is not realistic: It does seem more like a landscape of the imagination to me. You have the high vantage point with mountains fading in the distance… It reminds me of idealized Italianate backdrops we so often see in the paintings of the Renaissance. Editor: Quite right. And one cannot deny that Steiger has employed a very particular compositional device. Look at the delicate rendering of light and shadow and how the whole panorama is structured. I wonder if Steiger actually observed this place, or borrowed this vision of Ceylon, today's Sri Lanka, from imagination and various visual accounts of his time. Curator: It almost feels as if Steiger wasn’t just mapping territory but maybe… well, also our minds grappling with places both familiar and incredibly distant. How else to reconcile those architectural flights of fancy, and their emotional charge? Editor: An intriguing proposition. Steiger creates the drama through contrasts. Look at the baroque dynamics rendered here. There are buildings meticulously described to look as accurate depictions, but yet he employs all the dynamism in terms of composition, use of light and shadow. Curator: You are right! A sense of restless curiosity then… Maybe even an invitation to confront our own longing for something beyond the horizon, just a bit further than our grasp? Editor: An insightful perspective. This drawing not only captures a place but invites us into a reflective space where we are made to ponder over reality, dreams, and our capacity to give meaning.