Design: Academic Figure, from Encyclopédie 1762 - 1777

Curator: Benoit Louis Prevost gives us "Design: Academic Figure, from Encyclopédie," sometime between 1762 and 1777. The print—etching on paper—is currently held at The Art Institute of Chicago. It hits you in the gut, doesn't it? That singular form, the light catching it just so… Editor: It’s an image striving for balance, or maybe on the verge of toppling. The light and shadow seem to perform a visual tightrope walk, a push-and-pull relationship across the subject's back and the rocky crag underfoot. Curator: I always imagine that stance representing human aspiration— reaching, grasping, you know? The Encyclopédie was all about gathering and disseminating knowledge, illuminating the human form *and* the world we inhabit. Here, we literally *see* a synthesis of both, where the body *is* the symbol. Editor: The hand reaching up, perhaps a nod to classical gestures of invoking muses or higher powers? But grounded by that rock...almost an awkward, very human reach toward enlightenment. And in doing so the artist calls on very old notions that idealised forms give expression to universal themes of wisdom and the sublime. Curator: Right, right! The light is everything here; it almost renders the figure holy but also throws those angular shadows behind him that I find so compelling! Almost as if he is birthing that shade and we should worship it, but only just out of the corner of our eye! Editor: That shadow certainly evokes an interior space, somewhere less certain than this pose of supposed control. It brings the past into view as the artist, via their rendering, has left behind a tangible reminder of culture and self. He reaches but knows not why; and maybe we can too. Curator: Well, after examining it a bit closer, and especially in consideration with its classical influences, this print gives a deeper layer to contemplate than perhaps I originally had given it. The push and pull between his interior desires and the real reach needed to try and attain them rings out so true. Editor: It reminds us, I think, of that innate human need to translate experience into symbolic language to gain insight. He is seeking, like us; to find knowledge in the great wide world.