Fresco's in de toren van de Freundsberg bij Schwaz, Oostenrijk before 1893

Curator: This image documents "Frescoes in the tower of the Freundsberg near Schwaz, Austria," created before 1893, a photograph by Otto Schmidt of, well, frescoes. It's fascinating how a photo can capture another artistic medium. Editor: It has such a somber, contemplative quality. The play of light and shadow through the windows gives it an almost spiritual feeling. It reminds me of the kind of isolation and reflection you find in certain monasteries. Curator: The tower’s architecture combined with the faded frescoes provide a context. Freundsberg Castle saw various owners and uses throughout its history, originally linked to silver mining and later to religious orders. These murals might be indicative of a power structure displaying wealth and lineage. Editor: Notice the patterns in the fresco. Floral and scrolling designs – typical of the late Renaissance period – serve to domesticate, soften, even spiritualize the cold stone of what was a military structure. The presence of nature humanizing power, claiming its influence on the rigid world of hierarchy. Curator: Absolutely. Think about who inhabited these spaces, their class, gender, ability. The tower wasn't equally accessible to everyone. Who lived with this daily exposure to this artwork, and whose labor enabled the resources to decorate the space like this? It suggests much about that community. Editor: Yes, the floral motifs speak to that relationship between the aesthetic aspirations of those with power, with a message meant to cultivate and nourish... but to do so symbolically rather than concretely. And looking at the placement of the windows, small apertures punctuating this lofty enclosure. What might these symbolise, practically or psychologically, regarding concepts of light and hope within strict limitations? Curator: Precisely, that contrast between apparent openness – the windows letting in the light – versus confinement resonates with gendered and class structures throughout the centuries. But this photograph as a means of dissemination – moving beyond this contained space, opening these visual structures to entirely new readings. Editor: A reproduction offering its own, altered symbolic reading, through the very fact of the camera's mechanical eye seeing and showing something secluded, for us, now. Curator: Right, transforming our relationship with the symbols and power structures once present in this very tower. Editor: It gives one much to ponder. Curator: Indeed.