Gezicht op het Oor van Dionysius te Syracuse, Sicilië 1857 - 1914

Curator: Here, hanging in front of us, is Giorgio Sommer's photograph, "Gezicht op het Oor van Dionysius te Syracuse, Sicilië", placing us sometime between 1857 and 1914. What do you make of it? Editor: It's austere. Bleak even. That near-monochrome palette really pushes the feeling of ancient solemnity. Like staring into the mouth of the earth, waiting for an echo of whispers from long, long ago. Curator: An apt sentiment. Let's unpack some of what informs that mood, starting with the ear itself: Dionysius' Ear, a massive limestone cave carved into the Temenites hill in Syracuse. Legend has it the tyrant Dionysius used its unique acoustics to eavesdrop on prisoners. Editor: Clever chap! It looks as if nature had carved out an ancient stage set here, what with its sheer rock walls as the backdrop and little figures near the cave entrance. You could lose yourself wondering about their stories in contrast to such an overpowering monument of geology and time. Is that their voices too being carried up and around inside the stone, bouncing like imprisoned memories? Curator: It’s all about scale, I think. Note the composition Sommer employed. He uses tonal contrasts masterfully to create spatial recession and define forms, that makes you feel you’re in a tiny role dwarfed by the chasm. The figures are strategically placed at the entrance, perhaps, as points of human reference, heightening that effect. Sommer really understood light and shadow. Editor: Indeed! You’re dead right. It brings such drama. And this subdued colour – it's the art of the gray scale that whispers, not shouts. All that texture, though; if only you could reach out and feel the roughhewn, ancient surface. And that looming, looming shadow from inside... it could hide almost anything. Gives you chills! Curator: A landscape certainly with an uncanny beauty and, more broadly, another chapter in understanding classical romanticism with fresh eyes. Thank you for taking this journey back to the ear of stone with me. Editor: Thanks, it makes one want to dig for clues about a civilization, and about ourselves too, doesn't it?