Kaart van de Waal en een gezicht op Schenckenschans, 1635-1636 1635 - 1636

Curator: We’re looking at “Kaart van de Waal en een gezicht op Schenckenschans,” created by Claes Jansz. Visscher around 1635 to 1636. It's a print, specifically an engraving. Editor: My first impression? It feels strangely… authoritative. Like an old document, a map with secrets. I'm immediately drawn to all the tiny figures populating the landscape, their lives caught in this web of lines. Curator: Authority is an interesting term to use here, and indeed relevant. Formally, notice how Visscher uses precise lines to create a dual perspective: a bird’s-eye view of the Waal river and a detailed depiction of Schenckenschans fortress below. Editor: It's like two different worlds layered on top of each other, history and geography, but each with an uncanny feeling. The upper register reminds me of peering down from a hot air balloon. What about that odd array of weaponry and regalia draped at the join, framing Schenckenschans. It’s so tactile despite being an engraving. Curator: That "tactile" quality speaks to Visscher's skill with engraving, which can create tonal variation by creating higher or lower relief when pressing the print plate onto the paper. It acts as a sort of *vanitas* in its overt military symbolism. The combination of weaponry, flags and cartographical accuracy underscore a historical moment frozen in time. Consider the formal repetition in how the rivers meander mirroring the shape of the military paraphernalia above the horizon of the city-fortress in the lower half. Editor: It is melancholic but so well articulated by these careful lines! Do you get a sense of loss, the weight of history, as though something’s about to be contested? The perspective is not exact but idealized, as though he’s trying to present us with an *idea* of order. The fortress rendered as safe haven with activity teeming inside and around the embankments in smaller ships. The location’s destiny seems suspended somewhere between the bird’s-eye-view of cartography, with its overview and the human dramas about to play out. Curator: Exactly! The tension between objectivity and lived experience defines the piece. Formally the detailed line work emphasizes not just physical geography but the underlying political landscape of the Dutch Golden Age. Editor: This feels like an exercise in seeing and reading a city, both as a real place, but also as something constructed. I am impressed by what we could imagine was happening in the foreground just before this “snapshot.” So much conflict just beyond the edges. Curator: Absolutely, what a masterful play of line, perspective and historical weight. Editor: The level of observation achieved through lines creates such a world.