Portret van keizer Julius Caesar 1643 - 1680

Curator: Here we have Johann Friedrich Leonard’s "Portret van keizer Julius Caesar," dating approximately from 1643 to 1680. It's an engraving, a printmaking process involving metal and paper. My immediate impression is a somber stoicism. Editor: That olive wreath… and the determined set of his jaw… even translated through engraving, it evokes power. The choice to depict Caesar is laden with historical baggage; he’s a symbol of ambition and ultimately, demise. Curator: The lines feel clean, almost mass-produced, fitting given Caesar's impact. Do you think the material reality of a printed portrait flattens or democratizes the idea of a leader? Making Caesar less godly? Editor: The portrait has roots in the Roman era. Think about the evolution of Caesar's image. We project onto him our anxieties about authoritarianism, filtered through the centuries. Curator: Certainly. Leonard had his own anxieties. Let’s consider the labour needed to produce the engraved plates, and the material cost, including that of the paper on which it’s impressed. Those conditions speak to the time during which it was made and its contemporary distribution. Editor: I keep returning to that wreath. It signifies victory, but also vulnerability, a reminder that even the most powerful figures are ultimately mortal, a very humanizing emblem. I do agree it democratizes. Engravings like these made the idea of the emperor, previously divine, commonplace. Curator: Precisely! It’s fascinating to examine how printmaking, a mechanical process of reproduction, reshapes historical figures and even myths through consumption, through a certain volume of production. Editor: It makes one wonder: How much did the medium influence the message about leadership over time? I can ponder about the man, but also the meaning-making process in his image. Curator: I agree entirely. I now realize, that his image isn’t timeless but that his meaning will be consumed and refigured indefinitely by new generations through varying mediums of transmission.