Landschap met bouwwerken waaronder een piramide 1666 - 1695

Editor: This is “Landscape with Buildings, including a Pyramid,” a print made by Jean Pesne somewhere between 1666 and 1695, housed here at the Rijksmuseum. There’s something almost dreamlike about this landscape, you know? All these historical and imagined elements jumbled together… What strikes you about this print? Curator: It's the audacity, isn't it? The way Pesne just throws a pyramid into a pastoral European scene, like a misplaced chess piece in a game of croquet. It's so very Baroque, isn't it, this love of theatricality? He must have known he was creating something almost absurd, something that teeters on the edge of a joke. And yet, the etching is done with such care, each tree, each stone rendered with precise detail. Don’t you find that tension between reality and fantasy quite compelling? Editor: Definitely! The more I look, the more the strangeness appeals. Why a pyramid, do you think? Was it just exoticism for exoticism’s sake? Curator: Perhaps. Or maybe it speaks to something deeper. The pyramid as a symbol of power, of enduring legacy. Here it’s just…there, nestled amongst ruins and farmhouses. Almost as if Pesne is saying: “All empires crumble, all grandeur fades to just another part of the landscape." He captures the transience, or maybe… the impermanence of even what we perceive to be permanent. Don't you agree that idea resonates still? Editor: That's a perspective I hadn't considered. It makes the print feel surprisingly modern. Thanks for that insight. Curator: My pleasure. Art is such a fantastic playground for imagination and history – endless ways to interpret and wander, really!