Leeuw en leeuwin 1914

Curator: Looking at "Leeuw en leeuwin," or "Lion and Lioness," a 1914 print by Bernard Willem Wierink held here at the Rijksmuseum, what’s your initial reaction? Editor: Power. These aren't just animals; they're ideas made solid. A stoic grace emanates. It almost makes you forget this is a simple drawing. Curator: Indeed. The linearity throughout accentuates the musculature, yet consider how Wierink used a relatively limited palette. What does that constraint achieve, do you think? Editor: That the essence resides not just in color or detail, but rather the feeling. Restricting color demands that form alone carry emotion and intent, amplifying the emotional content through sparse strokes of line and wash. It shows that even something monochromatic can have weight. Curator: Absolutely. And examining the context, prints like this often found a wider audience precisely because of their relative affordability compared to painting. They democratized access to art. Does this work remind you of other examples? Editor: Now that you point out, it really does remind of that etching "Adam and Eve", with how similar is the treatment of their anatomical forms, and also how limited a monochromatic pallete is, or what's missing on that, it focuses on shapes in ways that richer coloring might've lost to us in texture instead. It’s as though seeing everything dull allows what can already been see be as fully present. It demands careful looking at small scale! It is worth seeing on every inch of their bodies! Curator: I agree. This touches on your point of seeing the medium democratizing art. There's a clever inversion here, the artist turns towards simple printing to achieve a unique final artwork by carefully using linear forms and few, impactful washes. How else might that challenge artistic hierarchies? Editor: By showing artistic potential transcends medium itself. That value isn't intrinsic in say, oil over paper but rather in how artists choose engagingly to reveal our most core of experiences - such as those that this art, that shows lions does to us by displaying those of wild world onto very our rooms, it almost makes me growl out, with full animal sense. Curator: A fitting reaction! Wierink really understood the communicative potential inherent within printmaking. Thanks for sharing your own artistic insights and for focusing our attention toward how its unique presentation speaks and growl. Editor: My pleasure! Sometimes it takes us pausing here, under close study to unearth just what may, by other moments escape - in the roaring form of prints, in line made art forms and more!