Kudde geiten bij een poort 1781 - 1786

Curator: I am immediately struck by how ethereal this artwork feels. Is that the intention, or is it simply because it is incomplete? Editor: That's a wonderful observation. Here, we have a drawing from Cornelis Brouwer, entitled "Kudde geiten bij een poort," or "Herd of Goats by a Gate," created somewhere between 1781 and 1786. It’s a pencil drawing, although it's also classified as a print, preserved at the Rijksmuseum. Curator: Goats by a gate… It has a lovely pastoral quality. There's this sense of enclosure, of something domestic pressing up against nature’s boundaries. That gate, though incomplete, acts almost as a proscenium, framing a small stage of rural life. What do you see at play symbolically? Editor: Well, goats in art often represent rustic life, but their presence here at the edge of civilization - denoted by that barely-there architectural ruin, a kind of liminal zone if you will – complicates the symbolism. They aren’t in pristine nature, nor fully within cultivated society. Perhaps a reminder of the symbiotic relationship between the cultivated and the wild... Even if it is just goats milling about. Curator: Yes! It hints at the way societies build on, and even idealize, nature. I am seeing that goats represent untamed wild, animalistic instincts, fertility... Then juxtapose it against this dilapidated man-made ruin of what was once civilization, a structure to give order and control, but is now rendered useless, conquered by vegetation. It certainly does feel very romantic and contemplative. I'm now noticing what seems like other human figures near the gate—they, too, seem part of this merging landscape. Editor: It’s certainly evocative. A seemingly simple scene, yet it echoes deeper themes about humanity's relationship with nature. A very thought-provoking drawing indeed, capturing a world on the cusp between classical ideals and romantic sensibilities. Curator: Exactly, a quiet moment charged with implications. I am definitely moved by its symbolism, and to its depiction of the world in flux.