Design for a Stage Set 1696 - 1756

Curator: Stepping into this gallery, we encounter Giuseppe Galli Bibiena's "Design for a Stage Set," an etching and print from the mid-18th century, around 1696 to 1756, part of the Met's collection. What’s your first take? Editor: A sort of ethereal, architectural daydream! It feels grand, yet skeletal, like peering into the bones of a forgotten opera house. The perspective is so dramatic, like the viewer is shrinking into a stage play. Curator: Bibiena, from a family dynasty of stage designers, innovated theatrical design through the manipulation of perspective. The etching and print medium itself is crucial—allowing widespread circulation of these baroque visions beyond the theater itself, influencing architecture and design thinking. Editor: The labor that went into all those precise lines... one imagines Bibiena obsessing over the most intricate details! And, for me, the scattering of sculptures perched on those towering columns creates such a curious, almost haunted atmosphere. What were the audiences seeing back then? Curator: Audiences of the baroque era would be consuming the representation of power—the architecture, meticulously designed to project status and dynastic legacy. Think about how the printing process made this design accessible; who now has access and who is still excluded? That question informs the work. Editor: It’s an odd tension. The drawing style is like a ghostly invitation; maybe a glimpse into fleeting emotions made material through sheer creative muscle. Though accessible due to the method, one still felt quite distant from such theatrical splendor, didn't they? Curator: Exactly! And consider how stage design affects viewers—constructing ideological frameworks around social space and the hierarchies within. It becomes a conversation about societal representation itself. Editor: To wrap up, I'll remember this piece for its curious dance between grandeur and vulnerability—between spectacle and raw human skill. Curator: And I'll be thinking about the material processes and accessibility and dissemination of Bibiena's prints in society as it impacts our current engagement.