Veel harten haken / Veel oogen zy-garen zagen maken 1723 - 1748

Isaak van der Putte created this enigmatic print, "Veel harten haken," a dense field of images evoking the daily life and material culture of its time. Here, hearts are juxtaposed with crossed axes, musical instruments, and tools of trades – symbols that resonate with the era's economic and social fabric. The heart, of course, has always been a powerful symbol, evolving from its early associations with the physical organ to its current status as the emblem of love and emotion. But what does it mean when set among implements of labor? We see this motif echoed across cultures. The image of crossed tools, for example, appears in heraldry and in the symbology of guilds, denoting skill, craft, and communal identity. These images tap into a deep well of collective memory, carrying the weight of generations of lived experience. The very act of depicting these symbols engages us on a subconscious level, evoking feelings of nostalgia, connection, and perhaps even a longing for a simpler, more tangible world. These emblems are not static, they reappear across time, transformed, yet still echoing with their original emotional power.