Vijfde dag van schepping: God schept vissen en vogels 1581 - 1656

Curator: What immediately strikes me about this engraving is the sheer profusion of life exploding from the scene, rendered entirely in black and white! It's almost overwhelming. Editor: You've nailed it! Now, let's orient our listeners: what we're viewing is "The Fifth Day of Creation: God Creates Fish and Birds" by Nicolaes de Bruyn. The print dates to somewhere between 1581 and 1656 and is currently held at the Rijksmuseum. It portrays the biblical scene where God commands the seas and skies to be filled with living creatures. Curator: Right, and considering the socio-political currents of that era, it is essential to acknowledge the work within the religious frameworks dominating thought and artistic production. Here, we witness an assertion of divine order and the subordination of nature beneath a paternal, godly figure. Editor: I can’t help but focus on God, smack-dab in the middle with open arms as though conducting this amazing opera of life. What do you think about the way the creatures themselves seem to reflect a symbolic order of things beyond just depicting, well, animals and birds? Curator: The distribution and rendering, while fantastical, do reinforce existing social hierarchies of the time. Observe the relatively contained, categorized placements reinforcing this. And how that feeds into a period perception of fixed natural order. The landscape backdrop, the bodies of water and celestial domain, provide the stage for human dominion as divinely sanctioned, right? Editor: Sure. It is pretty on-the-nose in many ways, but what if, beyond this surface-level reading, there is also just... wonder? The kind that maybe tries to remind people what a gift and joy existence on this planet really could be? Curator: Interesting. That brings up an important intersection: agency, both divine and human. Does de Bruyn’s rendering of the Fifth Day imply passive reception of the natural world, or rather an invitation toward stewardship? Editor: Maybe the point is that these binary oppositions ultimately collapse anyway, that wonder can and probably must incorporate critical stewardship! This print could then be read as inviting active participation with, not passive appreciation of the natural order. Food for thought!