Pissend paard Possibly 1624 - 1690

Curator: This etching, likely from the late 17th century, attributed to Jan van Aken, is called "Pissend paard." It roughly translates to "Pissing Horse". I find the frankness quite refreshing. What are your immediate impressions? Editor: Well, immediately I'm struck by its seeming simplicity. It's just a horse…relieving itself, with another nearby. Yet there’s a quiet dignity in the way it is rendered with a delicate and almost humorous naturalism. It is simply horses being horses, rendered delicately. Curator: Yes, the scene captures the everyday, but consider the etcher's craft. This work would have involved careful planning and physical labor, etching fine lines into a metal plate with acid to produce the image we see today. Note the landscape sketched around them – this required not just artistic skill, but practical understanding of material properties, and chemical processes. Editor: Absolutely. I also appreciate the way Van Aken incorporates that slightly larger scale horse in the foreground, versus the almost cartoon-like background humans to make them more relatable and immediate to the viewer. It really brings us, the viewer, into that bucolic scene. What's striking to me is that in something so "ordinary", the drawing celebrates the animal in an intimate setting. Curator: Indeed, this approach challenges the grand narratives often associated with art. We might see this as a commentary on the romanticized rural idyll – drawing the eye down to the very stuff that landscape painters typically ignore. By depicting the physicality of an animal in a domestic setting, and the physical realities of nature. it gives viewers insight into a society. Editor: In a society reliant on such animals! I mean, it is quite remarkable actually. It invites reflection. This reminds us how connected, in the era, the work of beasts would have been to our lives, as the working gears and source of mobility that simply allowed the landscape itself to be depicted at all! It seems poignant and prescient somehow. Curator: Precisely. Thank you for sharing your insights. Considering its medium and subject matter allows us to question the perceived values and social structures of that historical time. Editor: It's a powerful thing when an artist like Van Aken manages to make something so ordinary seem so deeply poetic.