Portret van Peter Schultz 1658 - 1749

Curator: This is "Portret van Peter Schultz," made sometime between 1658 and 1749, an engraving by Heinrich Jakob Otto. What catches your eye first? Editor: The sheer volume of hair! It's practically a cloud. He looks terribly serious, doesn't he? I wonder what being perpetually surrounded by so much curly wig does to a man. Curator: Well, those elaborate wigs were status symbols, showcasing wealth and position. It's intriguing how these markers of power translate, or don't, across the centuries. I read his presence in terms of academic portraits – how the university system immortalizes prominent teachers as public intellectuals and representatives. Editor: So, image building? A Baroque-era headshot for LinkedIn? But the starkness of the print, all lines and no colour...It’s austere, despite all that fabulousness! Curator: Precisely. It's an interesting tension: the subject trying to project authority but also, the means of production that are designed for wider audiences and a longer lifecycle for their fame. Engravings allowed for distribution; prints are a deliberately reproducible medium in comparison to painting, with an inherent message on its political utility. It's interesting to note, isn’t it, how the very notion of public persona has evolved yet still clings to similar visual cues. Editor: Yes, though it's hard for me to focus on high-minded pronouncements about "public intellectuals" when all I see is that prodigious, magnificent, absolutely overwhelming hair. It is also something so distant from modern times, even its simulacrum on a contemporary person makes me laugh. Curator: Perhaps that’s the appeal. It gives us a chance to consider our ideas about those old forms, its uses. It seems silly and contrived at first. Still, they did have it put together and delivered by way of printed artwork; so what? And how does its historical purpose alter my impressions and understanding? Editor: A memento mori for celebrity hair...It prompts thinking around celebrity status back then. Who determined it? Was Schultz someone very relevant? The limits of my knowledge, right there! Thanks for the insights; I guess it’s more than just follicles after all.