Gezicht op het stadhuis van Antwerpen 1797 - 1865

Editor: This is a print titled "Gezicht op het stadhuis van Antwerpen," or "View of Antwerp City Hall," dating sometime between 1797 and 1865, likely by Claude Marie François Dien. The stark lines of the architecture create such a formal and precise feeling. How would you interpret this work? Curator: Well, for starters, let your eye wander past the purely representational. Sure, it's "just" a building, rendered with impressive accuracy thanks to the etching and engraving. But accuracy can also be a form of dreaming, don’t you think? What do all those windows represent to you? Endless activity? A rigid social order? The promise of Neoclassical civic virtue? Editor: That's interesting. The windows hadn't really struck me that way, but I suppose they do hint at lives lived within. I had just thought of it as a very literal depiction. Curator: Literal, yes, but even in the most precise rendering, the artist chooses what to show, what to emphasize. Think about the towering central structure, like a tiered cake! Dien wants us to see not just a building, but *the* defining structure, the embodiment of civic power in Antwerp. And, what kind of emotion comes from viewing it? Pride? Awe? Subservience? Editor: Now that you point it out, it seems much grander than a mere depiction. The scale feels purposeful. Do you think it tries to instill a specific feeling in the viewer? Curator: Absolutely. The age, the style, even the medium all play a part. And that, I reckon, is the beauty of even seemingly "literal" art - the emotions it can spark within the viewer, don't you think? Editor: That makes me look at cityscapes in a whole new way. Thanks for pointing that out! Curator: My pleasure! Perhaps this encourages all of us to dig a bit deeper beneath the surface of even the most everyday representations.