Landscape with Herdsmen and Their Cattle 1785

Curator: I find such a calming presence emanating from this piece. It is titled "Landscape with Herdsmen and Their Cattle", a pencil and pastel drawing, made around 1785 by Jordanus Hoorn. It feels like stepping back into a gentler age. What is your impression? Editor: It does have a certain serenity. Structurally, the composition is quite clever, almost divided into distinct planes to guide the viewer's eye—foreground, middle ground, background... Curator: The gentle earth tones truly evoke a sense of harmony with nature. Notice how the light catches the trees and the subtle shadows dance around the animals at the watering hole; you can almost feel the stillness of the afternoon air. I can almost hear the water. Editor: Yes, there’s a calculated arrangement, with a kind of pictorial rhetoric unfolding. It’s evident in how the placement of figures directs the narrative flow—note the almost symmetrical distribution of pastoral figures and resting animals throughout. Are they symbols of a harmonious societal order, maybe? Curator: Perhaps, or perhaps it's simply an idealized version of rural life that artists like Hoorn found solace in. Though it appears peaceful, what stories would these farmers tell after the market, what happens when it gets dark? Editor: Well, the artwork flattens time by idealizing the rural landscape as a symbol, where temporal worries cease to exist, the emphasis lies not in storytelling, but in a sort of formal distillation of beauty—look closely at how linear strokes coalesce into complex spatial relations. It's about form as content. Curator: That's a perspective! For me, art's about engaging with the work; finding something familiar, strange or compelling and then going a little deeper and I do sense that, at least for myself, I appreciate life and how others can have different meanings attributed to things like “pastoral scenes.” Editor: A suitable sentiment, on this pleasant occasion and on a very lovely Hoorn drawing, in The Met. I too should appreciate life with art for art's sake!