Huis te Kruiningen 1685 - 1735

Curator: I’m struck by the serene mood this drawing evokes, almost as if the building is breathing, asleep and dreaming. It's a tranquil scene. Editor: That's a very sensitive read. Let's contextualize the piece first: What we have here is “Huis te Kruiningen,” attributed to Abraham Rademaker and created sometime between 1685 and 1735. Rademaker rendered it on paper with ink. Currently, it resides here at the Rijksmuseum. But before all that it was... built, from something! Curator: Absolutely! The materiality here is fascinating – Rademaker captured the very essence of stone and water, but with humble materials, with paper and ink. Think of the quarries, the transport, the masons who laid those stones... He has elevated something very earthly. Do you think he succeeded in his era to elevate it or was the audience very literal in its understanding? Editor: In a sense he becomes another brick, layering lines and wash to materialize his image, it's all hands. And you are right, what would have mattered were bricks, how much the city and Kruiningen had to grow that way... So there’s this dance, isn't there? Between Rademaker, the building’s constructors, and even the landscape itself... And even us now analyzing how they saw then, to feel what Rademaker intended us to feel and think in a city where water abounds... Curator: Water being the lifeblood of the scene; not just physical defense for the Huis, but a mirror reflecting its strength back at itself. What I take from his work is this dance as you called it, it is still continuing today and still manages to capture us here, isn't that brilliant? It invites me into introspection on something exterior to me! Editor: Yes, and maybe now it’s inviting us to ponder our own modes of making in contrast to the old, and that constant dialog is still producing "now". That’s the eternal dance of art. Thank you Rademaker!