The Siege of Fiesole by the Goths 1550 - 1599

Curator: This drawing, rendered in pen and brown ink, sometimes also identified as a print, is called "The Siege of Fiesole by the Goths," created sometime between 1550 and 1599 by Friedrich Sustris. Editor: It feels very tense, yet remote. The earth-toned wash gives everything a faded, almost dreamlike quality. I’m particularly drawn to the busy foreground against the vast and vague landscape behind. Curator: The siege itself speaks to cycles of power and vulnerability. We know Fiesole for its Etruscan and Roman past, a long view to its narrative, but sieges also function as potent symbols. Beyond historical representation, Sustris taps into collective anxieties about societal disruption, about communities under pressure. Editor: The figures on the right dominate, obscuring the military actions playing out to the left. They create such an intense field of activity! The cross-hatching technique adds depth, but I’m struck by how that busy density contrasts so strongly with the muted lines creating the landscape in the background. Do you think there is an emphasis here, playing out with figuration over pure landscape tradition? Curator: Perhaps. I think that while Sustris was concerned with faithfully conveying a historical event, the universal theme is inescapable, and also a visual encoding for how a society under attack experiences disruption internally: panic, dread, faith. The grouping suggests continuity, an unwillingness to relinquish the familiar ways. Editor: That feels right. Note how the line quality itself shifts to convey depth and hierarchy; the further the lines fall into the distance the softer the rendering. Also notice how he structures the work through the placement of diagonals that thrust across the work – really beautiful organization, drawing you through the space. Curator: And while ostensibly about external threats, the drawing speaks eloquently about internal, psychological, communal siege. It is not so much about physical dominance but social and cultural endurance under stress. Editor: It’s truly impressive how Sustris distills a complex historical moment down to a tension between detail and elision, pushing our eye from chaos into… uncertain safety. Curator: Precisely, and in so doing, gives lasting symbolic weight to history.