Southern Landscape with a Waterfall and Goats 1760 - 1799

Curator: We're looking at Ferdinand Kobell’s “Southern Landscape with a Waterfall and Goats,” made sometime between 1760 and 1799, a work rendered in etching. It’s currently held here at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: What immediately strikes me is the dominance of line and a muted color palette. It's almost monochromatic in its effect. The hatching and cross-hatching create a dense texture that seems to flatten the space. Curator: It does feel a bit dreamlike, doesn’t it? Beyond the aesthetic of the image, there’s this romantic idea of nature, goats drinking freely in this grotto, while what appears to be an ancient fortress looms in the distance. We might understand those goats as a symbol of the pastoral life. Editor: That building anchors the composition formally. See how it neatly balances the mass of the rock formations and vegetation to the left? It creates a visual call-and-response across the pictorial plane. I'd be interested in exploring Kobell’s application of etching; the degree of detail in the rendering of each element is particularly skillful. Curator: And the etching would have afforded the image some reproducibility and wide distribution. These idealized southern landscapes reminded their audiences of the grand tour, of classical education, of wealth. I find that a bit poignant, as this type of life and landscape would be largely inaccessible to most who beheld it. Editor: Ah, there’s the rub—it’s a carefully constructed illusion of reality. By emphasizing the linear structure, the medium, and the overall composition, it almost functions as a diagram or notation for a real experience. It almost speaks to the beginning of photography as well, something that we know it's just around the corner... it seems so fragile, this image... Curator: Yes, a foreshadowing indeed! It allows us to trace those longings back through time. Seeing it displayed today allows it to continue evoking both serenity and perhaps also the longing for something lost or imagined. Editor: A powerful artifact indeed. The tension between technique and representation is definitely something I will contemplate.