Allegorie op de meetkunde 1744

Johannes van der Spyck created this allegory on geometry in 1744 using etching. This print comes from a period in which European intellectual life was being reshaped by the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, science, and empirical knowledge. The female figures in the print, allegorical personifications, are not neutral. These figures become a vehicle through which cultural values and gendered roles are both reinforced and challenged. There’s a tension between the way the female body is idealized and the active role these figures play in the pursuit of knowledge. The map being surveyed and measured, revealing an active engagement with the world, speaks to the impulse of the Enlightenment thinkers to catalogue and understand their world through a new focus on empirical methods. This work is a complex interplay between the ideal and the real, where gender, knowledge, and power intersect, echoing the dynamic and transformative spirit of the Enlightenment.