Gezicht op de Abdij van Rievaulx met mannen die het gras maaien before 1856

Editor: So, this is "Gezicht op de Abdij van Rievaulx met mannen die het gras maaien," by Joseph Cundall, sometime before 1856. It’s an albumen print, part of an album. There's something serene yet haunting about it – this ruined abbey juxtaposed with these figures scything in the foreground. What do you see in this piece, especially given the materials used? Curator: The albumen print is key. Think about the labor involved. Preparing the glass plate, coating it with albumen – egg whites! – sensitizing it, exposing it, developing it… It’s a craft as much as a technology. And consider what’s being depicted: not just the romantic ruin, but also the ongoing labor imposed on that space. Are these men picturesque laborers, or a visual commentary on the continuation of exploitation after the abbey’s fall? Editor: That's a good point! I hadn’t considered the class implications embedded within the scene. So, you're saying the albumen print itself, the material and process, acts as a kind of… evidence? Curator: Exactly. It makes us consider not just the ‘what’ of the image, but the ‘how’ and ‘why’. Who commissioned it? Who consumed it? These photographs of ruins were part of a Victorian obsession, of course, but what specific social function did this particular image serve, circulating as it did within an album? It prompts us to reflect on labor both represented and embodied in the artwork’s very production. Editor: It completely shifts my perspective. Seeing it less as just a landscape, and more as a document tied to specific conditions of production and consumption. I learned a lot; thank you. Curator: It’s a reciprocal exchange; considering the labor involved transforms our reading of the entire image.