Don Quixote 

Editor: So, here we have a Gustave Doré engraving of, apparently, Don Quixote. It looks incredibly dramatic; this whole landscape is brimming with people and horses struggling to cross this tiny bridge. What jumps out at you? Curator: Jumps? Precisely! Doré really throws us into the thick of it, doesn't he? This image has always felt to me less about the particular story of Don Quixote and more a broader meditation on the nature of heroism, the absurd grandeur of conflict, perhaps even a darkly comic reflection on human folly. Can you feel the weight of the history-painting tradition he’s grappling with? He’s got figures teetering all over the place. There is an inherent danger when we commit to something – and sometimes we should simply acknowledge our fear and doubt, like a modern Sancho Panza might say: ‘Is it worth it?!' Editor: The risk of everything falling apart certainly is part of it! This really does prompt reflection on commitment, especially if success or failure is not guaranteed, but failure is still meaningful, a notion deeply present in *Don Quixote*. And that engraving is incredible. The chaos of line and composition feels deliberately… overwhelming. Curator: Absolutely! The overwhelming-ness *is* the point. Look how Doré uses light and shadow, that churning waterfall against the jagged rocks, that impossibly narrow bridge against the mountainous background. All point to a vision, if you’re open to receiving one, that grand ideals meet harsh reality, leaving everyone a bit soaked and battered in the process. He offers an almost tangible glimpse of the chaotic consequences that lie between idea and manifestation. Isn’t that just life? Editor: It really is, and Doré makes that sentiment vivid. Thanks. I won’t look at a bridge the same way ever again. Curator: Nor I… Pass the metaphorical towel, would you?