Drieluik van de haven van Brugge c. 1665

Curator: This is an engraving titled "Drieluik van de haven van Brugge," dating to about 1665. What strikes you initially? Editor: Immediately, the starkness of the medium is overwhelming. It lends the print a severity, and my eyes trace a constant battle between shadow and emptiness across the rigid, man-made city grid. Curator: The work's composition, divided into three horizontal registers, reinforces the tension between these planes. Note how each layer presents a different perspective, almost a geographical unpacking of the city of Bruges. Editor: True, the city's rigid infrastructure exposes underlying class systems and oppressive structures. The architecture imposes an inherent power dynamic—perhaps unconsciously exposing the way societies are organized and controlled. Curator: It's fascinating how the anonymous artist captures space through carefully rendered lines and forms. Look closely at how linear perspective is used in the top register, offering a distant, almost panoramic view. The middle register showcases a plan view of the city, resembling an abstracted map—lines delineate streets and fortifications. Editor: Indeed, and that abstracted representation hints at power. Control through knowledge. It suggests that viewing the town in plan, or understanding its layout, permits a certain authority over its inhabitants and the flows of labor or capital that it dictates. How do you respond to the absence of people? Curator: I'm drawn to how this absence isolates and universalizes the structural form, rendering Bruges less a city, and more the Platonic ideal of one—but your observation invites us to consider those erased narratives, whose stories were not prioritized within a visual culture dominated by colonial perspectives. Editor: That perspective certainly offers us space for reflection—how places affect those within. How can visual representations play in their roles of liberation? Curator: A poignant final thought.