Cappuccini burial vaults c. 1890 - 1900

Curator: This evocative gelatin-silver print from around 1890-1900 captures the Cappuccini burial vaults. What strikes you about it? Editor: It’s instantly eerie. All those skulls and bones – it’s like a macabre wallpaper, meticulously arranged. You almost expect to hear whispers from beyond. And I think that what's next to it is part of the sketchbook, isn't it? Curator: Precisely. You feel the artist's presence, as if you flipped the page right out of their personal sketchbook! This photograph is part of a larger sketchbook, capturing travel impressions. The contrast between the empty page, maybe for notes, maybe for an inspired pen-ink sketch to come... and the depiction of death it is pretty acute! Editor: The labor involved is fascinating too, though. I wonder about the people who arranged these bones – who prepared the spaces. It looks awfully tedious but is certainly beautiful in the result. What a thing to spend your life doing! Curator: Imagine the worldview of someone surrounded by the physical remains of mortality. What philosophies shaped their hands as they pieced together these patterns of bones? Did the work become a meditation, a macabre ritual, or something else? This sort of questions definitely makes one question everything. Editor: Maybe all of the above? What survives are only traces. And speaking of, the type of photography that we find here and of course the aged paper is suggestive of someone that used "homemade" materials. The artistic decisions behind them makes the experience completely unique and more personal. Curator: Agreed. There is so much hidden here about creation and demise, isn't there? Editor: Indeed. On one level, it's an ancient scene preserved through innovative mediums like a sketchbook and gelatin-silver print. Curator: And through Samuel J. Beckett's thoughtful capture. Editor: This image makes you really think about artistic processes from an intriguing range of angles.