Gezicht op de haven van Andernach 1865

Editor: This etching, "View of the Port of Andernach" by Jean Théodore Joseph Linnig, from 1865, it has this wonderful almost dreamlike quality, very delicate, especially the sky. The composition is interesting, all these different buildings… what draws your eye in this piece? Curator: Oh, absolutely, I see it too! It's like stepping into a memory, isn’t it? For me, it's the everyday-ness of it all, but the etching gives it this gossamer cloak. Look how the light glances off the water; Linnig's trying to bottle a moment, make time stop, with these quotidian snapshots. Don’t you think? What I also like is this tension between precision and emotion in his etching lines…a conversation, or a tightrope, he has to walk. Does the port give you any kind of mood – perhaps longing, perhaps excitement? Editor: It definitely has that serene quality – very still, even with the activity depicted. And you’re right, there's this really tangible sense of a specific place. All the details make the port of Andernach come to life in a striking way. Do you think Linnig was trying to evoke a particular feeling about industrialization or something with the juxtaposition of the natural setting with the tower and the harbor activity? Curator: Hmmm, industrialization... well, that's always the elephant in the room with art from that era! Linnig is never angry. But perhaps more interested in, shall we say, memorializing, an older mode of doing things…or more likely making a good living for his family in portraying scenes his clients enjoy! This isn't necessarily some polemic...it’s life seen through slightly rose-tinted spectacles, and transferred, ever-so-delicately, onto a copper plate. The mood? A sunny afternoon daydream of Andernach perhaps! Editor: I like that thought, thank you! Seeing it like that, a daydream, it helps tie together those seemingly disparate elements that seemed to be fighting to gain my attention into something that feels balanced, even intimate. Curator: Indeed! A window onto the past, delicately etched for us to ponder, and dream.