Two Wooden Portals from 'Verscheyden Schrynwerck (...)' ['Plusieurs Menuiseries (...)'] 1658

Curator: Today, we’re looking at Paul Vredeman de Vries' engraving, "Two Wooden Portals from 'Verscheyden Schrynwerck (...)' ['Plusieurs Menuiseries (...)']," created in 1658. Editor: My first impression is a sense of meticulously crafted theatricality. They feel like stage sets for miniature dramas. Curator: They’re certainly designed to impress! Think of the symbolism imbued in these portals. The doorway, representing not just physical passage, but the transition into new phases, new rooms in life. These are powerful visual cues within domestic spaces. Editor: Absolutely. And consider the material itself. Wood, a living, breathing thing transformed through skilled labor into these rather imposing structures. We’re seeing the aspirations of the homeowner manifested in the choice of wood, the carver’s skill. This wasn't a standardized object. Curator: The ornamentation itself speaks volumes about cultural aspirations during the Baroque period. Look at the broken pediments, the scrolls, the masks—classicizing details meant to associate the owner with status, refinement and history. Editor: True, but there's also a real practicality embedded here. The design shows modularity that would have allowed carpenters some standardization when commissioned to install portals. These engravings weren't just fantasies. They served as blueprints for real spaces people inhabited. Curator: The choice of engraving for this book, instead of say, painting, offers another kind of symbolic language as well. The print is repeatable. Design disseminated easily into other hands; thus the images invite others to envision, or appropriate, that language of power. Editor: Which again highlights materiality. The lines, the ink, the paper. Cheap and repeatable like you mentioned, offering access to ornate design, while pointing out the contrast with expensive woodwork which few could afford. It speaks to the material culture, which always has class implications, too. Curator: It is a fascinating work that functions simultaneously as functional design and complex social statement. Editor: These portals definitely gave me pause to reflect on our relationship with both architecture and the objects that fill our living spaces.