Dorpsstraat 1913 - 1918

Curator: What a deceptively simple drawing. Shilling titled it "Dorpsstraat," or "Village Street," created sometime between 1913 and 1918, employing humble graphite and pencil on paper. Editor: It has this wonderfully evocative, melancholic quality. The tree looming over the buildings almost feels protective, yet also imposing, like it's watching over the street's secrets. Curator: I see it more as an almost nostalgic record. Consider the timeframe, the eve of great social upheaval during the first World War, captured via impressionistic means. Perhaps Shilling aimed to immortalize that everyday reality before history washed over it. Editor: Yes, that rings true. Note the chimneys; they look like silent sentinels, symbols of domestic life but rendered with stark lines. It evokes a bittersweet feeling of permanence confronted with vulnerability. It is like the domestic version of a battle scene. Curator: And we cannot forget Shilling was operating in a particular social and political landscape, shaped by rising national sentiment and colonial attitudes. His representation of seemingly humble everyday places, through relatively mass-produced material like graphite, takes on greater significance when viewed through those lenses. Perhaps an expression of the shared experience. Editor: Absolutely. Even the seemingly effortless lines speak to that tension. Each stroke hints at untold stories of the people living in these houses. It is an intersection of personal and communal memories etched on paper. The very fact the date "Aug 6/13" is recorded, hints at a decisive need to remember. Curator: Precisely, Alexander Shilling's Dorpsstraat provides us not just an image of a place but, perhaps more vitally, a portal into a crucial moment of cultural memory and anticipation. Editor: I completely agree. It seems a seemingly unremarkable street, but now with the weight of the date, it's charged with potent visual symbolism—a quiet before the impending storm.