Rennend hert met opgeheven kop 1819 - 1881

Curator: Oh, wow, that's kinetic. All those furious lines and jaggedy mountains, makes my heart beat faster just looking at it! Editor: We’re looking at “Running Deer with Head Raised” by Johannes Tavenraat, made sometime between 1819 and 1881. It's an ink drawing currently housed here at the Rijksmuseum. The dynamism of it is striking, and immediately made me consider what might be chasing this creature... Curator: Or what it's chasing *after*. I'm getting less flight and more headlong rush, an eagerness leaping off the page. Notice the way Tavenraat’s simple lines capture not just form but raw energy. The buck's not simply running. He's *reveling*. Editor: That is, of course, an extremely idealized reading. Aren’t such Romantic portrayals often veiled commentary on humanity's perceived "dominion" over nature? Deer are perpetually politicized symbols, standing in for nations, borders, wilderness… This one seems ripped from an antiquated hunting scene, poised either as prey or pursued. Curator: That perspective definitely reins in my initial reaction. I admit, my first thought was "freedom!" The lines are bold, urgent, scratching the animal into being... Now, realizing the hunting context, the marks feel a little more frantic, fueled by terror instead of joy. I still feel an exuberance, however melancholic. The head is held so high. Editor: It’s precisely this tension between what is and what *might be* that Tavenraat manages so skillfully here, which also challenges us to reckon with the ways artistic traditions reflect the ever changing role of the human as it interacts with the animal and with the wild. It makes me wonder... In our moment, amid constant political, climate and economic challenges, how might we consider images that echo that dynamic, while offering newer symbols of survival or resistance. Curator: Food for thought, indeed! Perhaps that headlong rush speaks less of simple terror, and more of primal persistence against every expectation. Editor: Ultimately, this seemingly simple drawing contains within it a multitude of social and personal perspectives regarding how we move, and exist within an ever dynamic landscape.