Illustratie voor 'Den Arbeid van Mars' van Allain Manesson Mallet 1672

Curator: At first glance, I see an almost clinical obsession with perfect, fortified forms. What does it stir in you? Editor: What strikes me immediately is a dance between precision and premonition. Each polygon, neatly labelled – 'Penta', 'Hexagon', escalating to 'Decago' – feels less like a blueprint and more like a constellation, maps to some future war. It's the aesthetic of impending doom, beautifully rendered. This piece is a print from 1672, attributed to Romeyn de Hooghe, titled 'Illustratie voor ‘Den Arbeid van Mars’ van Allain Manesson Mallet,' currently held at the Rijksmuseum. Curator: Doom is an apt term, and consider the historical context of Dutch fortifications; this really could be preparation. The rigid structure speaks volumes—geometric forms, each carefully detailed. This imagery also seems to recall medieval city mapping conventions, only rendered as a diagram of fortifications rather than something resembling daily life. Editor: Absolutely. The repetition itself amplifies the sense of foreboding. And you're right about recalling past imagery—these geometric strongholds begin to feel symbolic, evoking the architectural ambitions of empires past. Aren't all these points, edges, and controlled vistas about more than defense, about the mind projecting itself? These are psychic fortifications as much as material ones. Curator: A fitting summation. The clean lines almost try to rationalize chaos—control, at least conceptually, the uncontrollable. Yet I wonder if this is as cold-hearted as I assume... I keep thinking of my childhood drawing shapes in the dirt with a stick; even these diagrams carry something innocent in the compulsive, child-like construction of form, however warped it becomes through military imagination. Editor: It's that duality that makes it so compelling, isn’t it? On one level it's a purely technical exercise— mapping, geometry. And at the same time, this meticulousness serves as an index of a collective anxiety. Curator: In all, there's an unexpected tenderness, born not from empathy but meticulousness itself. Editor: A frozen, geometrical embrace, ready for deployment. Yes, now that is going to linger in my mind for a long while.