Koe staand in een plas 1796 - 1845

Editor: So here we have "Cow Standing in a Pool," made sometime between 1796 and 1845 by Anthony Oberman. It's an engraving, and, honestly, it’s kind of making me feel a little…peaceful? A simple, quiet moment. What captures your attention most about this print? Curator: Peaceful, yes! It reminds me of childhood summers spent on my Grandfather's farm! For me, it's the incredibly detailed texture that Oberman coaxes from the engraving medium, that beautifully conveys a sense of humble everyday life, but with an added symbolic charge of "mother nature". The cow feels so solid, doesn’t it, while the water is suggested with just the barest, most economical lines. Does the cow strike *you* as particularly individualized, or perhaps a kind of stand-in for the domestic animal more broadly? Editor: I hadn’t thought of that— the texture really *does* bring it to life. I guess it feels more like a stand-in. It's like *the* quintessential cow, more of an idea than a specific one, if that makes any sense? Curator: Precisely! It becomes a meditation on the pastoral—a vision of harmony, which I'm sure felt particularly resonant during the tumultuous years that this work was created. What a time of enormous social and political upheaval! Makes you wonder what Oberman was really longing for when he created this simple scene. Editor: I guess art can be an escape even back then, huh? I was just seeing a cow in a pond! Curator: Isn't that wonderful, though? That a single cow, standing in a puddle, can be both… utterly *itself*, and a gateway to something much grander? That's what keeps me coming back, every single day. Editor: Okay, you've convinced me, I’ll never look at farm animals the same way again! Thanks for all that!