Gezicht op huis de Borgel bij Deventer 1861

Curator: This sketch is entitled “Gezicht op huis de Borgel bij Deventer,” which translates to “View of the House Borgel near Deventer.” It’s a pencil drawing by Jan Striening, created in 1861. What strikes you about it? Editor: It feels like a half-remembered dream. Ghostly. You can almost smell the damp stone and hear the distant clip-clop of horse hooves on a cobblestone street. The aged paper definitely adds to that. Curator: The drawing captures a specific location and time. What’s fascinating is the interplay between the artist’s attention to detail and his somewhat Romantic sensibility, that gives it an ethereal quality. Editor: Right, you get a good sense of place, even though it is lightly sketched. I notice how the main building dominates the foreground. It’s so much detail compared to the sketchiness in the background around the outbuildings and the dog lounging by the cart! Curator: Observe the stepped gable of the main building—that ornamental flourish speaks to a desire to imbue even a functional farmhouse with a sense of grandeur and civic pride. We see these architectural details often used to signify status. Editor: Interesting. I’m also wondering if that is smoke rising from a chimney, it makes you imagine what life was like then, or rather, what the artist imagined it to be. Curator: Yes! Striening is carefully constructing a visual narrative that’s deeply rooted in a specific place. That little detail brings it alive. Even this landscape adopts symbolism that becomes timeless, as humans and temporality are involved in creating it. Editor: Well, I’m completely enchanted. I’m off to find my own Borgel. Thanks for helping me look closer! Curator: It was a pleasure. May your own artistic explorations be as fruitful!