Vastenavond 1528 - 1580

Curator: Well, this image hums with life! It's like a peek into a lively party. Editor: Precisely. What we are viewing is an engraving known as "Vastenavond," or Shrove Tuesday, dating back to the period of 1528-1580. It is held within the collection of the Rijksmuseum, created by Balthazar van den Bos. Curator: Shrove Tuesday, you say? That makes sense. There's so much… exuberance. People dancing, eating, it's all so chaotic yet joyful. What do you make of the artist's choice of just line to capture such a dynamic scene? Editor: Line is actually extremely effective. Think about the social role of art at the time and the symbolic importance of such festivals like Shrove Tuesday. Before the austerity of Lent, you had moments of excess, blurring the lines between social classes. These visual details can convey status or satirize it. Curator: I can certainly see it as capturing a moment of transgression. The figures in the background especially have that certain glint of… mischievous glee in their eyes, don't they? They look ready to upend all the conventions in this… drawing? Print? Editor: Both! The image has a sense of humor and, in that moment of temporary carnival, societal expectations are also portrayed as in the act of being challenged. But the work is complicated by the engraving as it also normalizes many practices through visibility that at once provides visibility and perhaps some degree of enforcement of behaviors too. Curator: Right. As soon as the dance ends, the real world reappears. Perhaps that’s why I sense a feeling of frantic activity too? As though it must all occur *now*, before the coming fast. Do you agree it comes across more like something felt or is it all planned for the viewer’s interpretation? Editor: No, there's certainly something emotionally loaded happening here. I wouldn't say *planned* as it invites diverse responses given individual relationships with religion, celebrations, transgression. Curator: And yet we see ourselves, right? As humans seeking revelry together? Editor: Exactly! And that's perhaps the key, an invitation into an understanding of these celebrations, how art can reveal cultural and political meanings.