Design for a Stage Set

Giovanni Maria Quaglio created this stage set design with pen and brown ink, and gray wash on paper. The architecture, though rendered on a flat surface, aims to evoke the weight and texture of massive stone construction. Quaglio has created an image of architecture that is not really architecture, a drawing intended as a guide for stagecraft. Think about all of the labor involved in the architecture being represented: quarrying the stone, shaping it, transporting it, assembling it into arches and vaults. He then translates that enormous amount of physical work into marks on paper. The drawing is a design, pointing towards another kind of labor – that of the stagehands and builders who would realize this vision as a temporary, theatrical space. By considering the making and materials, and the wider context of labor, we can understand the drawing not just as a design, but as a document of production.