Artillerie montée / Gemonteerd geschut / Pupilles de l'armée / Cadetten van het leger / Garde civique / Burgerwacht 1833 - 1911

Editor: Right, let's talk about "Artillerie montée / Gemonteerd geschut," and so on. It's a lithograph by Brepols & Dierckx zoon, dating roughly from 1833 to 1911. It feels almost like a uniform chart, with rows of figures. What do you see in this piece, that maybe I'm missing? Curator: Well, isn't it fascinating? It whispers to me of a world obsessed with order, duty, and perhaps a touch of naive grandeur. Imagine these crisp uniforms, emblems of authority, yet rendered with a sort of flat innocence in a lithograph. It’s almost like a child's drawing of soldiers. Do you get a sense of how the repetition, almost like a wallpaper pattern, drains some of the individual humanity from each figure? Editor: I see what you mean. They become almost like symbols. And the trilingual captions, it's intriguing. Curator: Absolutely! They become symbolic! More abstract shapes, shadows, emblems. As for the captions, perhaps it speaks to a society grappling with national identity, straddling different languages and cultures? Is it celebrating unity or highlighting division, I wonder? The artist shows various European armies which perhaps gives us a clue... I wonder what Brepols & Dierckx zoon would have said? Editor: It does give you pause to consider the layers of meaning beneath a seemingly straightforward image. The date range alone opens up so many historical possibilities! Curator: Exactly. Art often speaks most loudly in its silences, don't you think? Editor: Indeed! Thank you for helping me unpack this print; I see it in a totally new light now.