The Last Hour 19th-20th century

Curator: This is Joseph T. Keiley’s “The Last Hour,” a photogravure created sometime between the 19th and 20th centuries. It resides here at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Editor: My immediate impression is a quiet, melancholic scene. The monochrome palette lends a sense of timelessness, a sort of meditative state looking into the past. The silhouetted boats almost feel ghostly. Curator: Indeed. Keiley, a proponent of Pictorialism, often manipulated the photographic process. A photogravure like this one involves etching a copper plate to hold ink, a labor-intensive process, contrasting with the supposed ease of photography, giving him better control over tonal range and producing something with an inherent craft element to its production. Editor: Right, and thinking of "The Last Hour," perhaps it symbolizes more than just a time of day. The boats themselves evoke a sense of journey, or perhaps the end of a voyage, mirroring the twilight depicted in the scene. Is there an echo of a "crossing the River Styx" visual motif here, a passage into something unknown? Curator: I see what you're getting at, and perhaps that symbolism can be taken even deeper when one looks at how Keiley and other pictorialists elevated photography to high art, thus raising questions about manual and machine processes as modes of representation. Keiley himself dedicated many of his writings to the elevation of artistic photography. The materiality is inseparable from its message. Editor: And look at the subtle tonal shifts! It almost blurs the line between photography and drawing or painting, adding a spiritual dimension by blurring form and implying something intangible just beyond our sight. The sun obscured, barely visible…the fading light representing so much more. Curator: He clearly intended to manipulate our experience of the image through deliberate craftsmanship, distancing the result from simple mechanical reproduction and forcing one to reflect on art’s making. Editor: Ultimately, Keiley delivers more than a seascape. "The Last Hour" whispers about life's transitions and the powerful hold that symbols possess. Curator: A blend of process and potent imagery, revealing how intention, labour, and careful chemical procedures intertwine to generate poignant feelings in us as viewers.