Ladies and Gentlemen Enjoying a Dutch Garden 1739

Cornelis Pronk created this drawing of elegantly dressed people in a Dutch garden sometime in the first half of the 18th century. It’s made with pen and brown ink, with a grey wash on paper. The striking formality of the scene depends on labor, both in the garden and on the page. The trees themselves, trimmed into perfect vertical planes, testify to the gardener's constant work. But the drawing, too, is painstakingly rendered; the many tiny strokes of ink, and the subtle deployment of wash, show Pronk's deft and patient hand. While we might not think of drawing as labor in the same way as we do gardening, this level of commitment surely counts. The rigidity of the natural setting emphasizes the careful work required to create such artifice, and in turn, the drawing has its own kind of heightened artificiality. Ultimately, this work gives us an insight into the labor and processes required in the production of fine art.