Restanten van de Tempel van Hadrianus te Rome c. 1755 - 1762

Curator: Giovanni Battista Piranesi created this print, “Restanten van de Tempel van Hadrianus te Rome,” around 1755-1762. It resides here at the Rijksmuseum. What do you make of it? Editor: A certain melancholy permeates it. The precise, almost scientific lines contrast so starkly with the obvious decay. You sense the weight of time collapsing these classical forms. Curator: Indeed. Piranesi, working in a neoclassical vein, constantly evokes both the grandeur and the ruinous nature of the classical past. These ruins weren’t simply objective records; they spoke to the cyclical nature of empires and the power of time. The temple as a symbol—what remains? Editor: The physicality of the stone. Look at the sheer labor involved in quarrying, transporting, and erecting these massive columns. These remnants become documents of human effort. I wonder about the workshops where these columns were carved and the economic engine of their creation. Curator: Yes, each stone whispers of both deliberate design and inevitable erosion. The temple was built for Hadrian; even in Piranesi's time, its meaning was layered with the implications of multiple eras. Piranesi brings those symbolic meanings crashing down on the viewer, though. It becomes less a monument of Hadrian and more of human folly in light of grand aspirations. Editor: Absolutely. The materiality, even captured in a print, emphasizes that physical world—the commerce of its creation, the craftspeople whose hands shaped the forms, and ultimately the market forces which lead to its disintegration and then artistic recreation as a print. Look at how the image invites the viewer to reflect upon each stage of material transformation. Curator: Piranesi allows us to see the artwork as a relic, almost a moral lesson that we can use. It offers us a very long cultural memory. It shows us history from both its most ambitious construction, and slow-moving ruin. Editor: A powerful intersection of art and labor indeed, showing the continuous cycle of creation, usage and eventual entropic undoing, which continues to fascinate to this day.