Landschap met paard dat van achteren een pijp rookt 1730

Editor: This engraving, "Landscape with a horse smoking a pipe from behind," made by Bernard Picart in 1730, is quite unusual. The detail of the horse is beautiful, but the…pipe situation is definitely a conversation starter. What are your initial thoughts on it? Curator: Well, let's start with the materiality of it. It's an engraving, meaning a laborious process of cutting into a metal plate. Think about the labor involved in creating this image versus, say, a quick sketch. This points to an intention beyond mere representation. What sort of labor might be being critiqued here? Editor: Critiqued? I mostly saw it as humorous, honestly. Curator: Humor, definitely. But Baroque art, even the seemingly lighthearted stuff, often comments on social structures. The pipe, placed where it is, it subverts the dignified portrayal of animals often seen. Who has the luxury to smoke a pipe? What comment does that make when assigned to the animal body in this particular manner of excretion? Editor: So, the *act* of smoking, and who gets to do it, becomes part of the meaning through the unexpected and maybe grotesque placement? And that speaks to labor... the leisure of certain classes versus the labor of others? Curator: Precisely! Consider, too, the material cost of tobacco and pipes in the 18th century. Access reflects power and privilege, which is being comically deconstructed here, questioning hierarchy by having the horse be literally the butt of a joke. What else do you see within those themes? Editor: I hadn't thought of it that way. Seeing it now, I appreciate how Picart used the technique of engraving itself to make a point about class and privilege in 18th-century society, using this weird imagery. Curator: Exactly. It's a great reminder that art, even when funny, is very rarely *just* funny. Understanding the material and the context really opens it up.