The Curse 1832

Curator: This piece is titled "The Curse," created by Jules Boilly in 1832. It’s a lithograph, a type of printmaking, and currently resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: Oh, my! Just from looking at it, I feel this sudden anxious energy. A kind of dramatic, compressed, claustrophobic awkwardness, wouldn't you say? All caught in stark monochrome. Curator: That sense aligns perfectly with the Romantic period’s focus on intense emotion. Notice the figures, and how their gestures, especially the man's theatrical arm raise, point to feelings that boil over. What do you notice? Editor: That dude's totally gesticulating like he's warding off demons, or perhaps explaining away some ill doing; whilst the woman is giving us her back. She feels distant and resigned! She could also have cast this said "Curse". Symbolically that says so much about societal power dynamics at the time. And the eavesdropping man hiding in the background only contributes to this sensation! Curator: Exactly. This voyeur character serves a specific purpose; his presence symbolizes hidden knowledge, judgement, shame, which were huge themes in genre art of the time. Consider as well the context. Printmaking allowed these emotionally fraught, often moralizing narratives, to reach a wider audience than traditional painting ever could. Editor: It’s also funny how small the actual curse seems to be depicted – the "thing" jumping from the tree above this couple like a demon; yet it manages to occupy such significant mental space! Curator: This highlights the symbolic weight, doesn't it? In earlier centuries a flying daemon might mean some evil external source has cast some kind of bad luck over your lives. Later these would reflect internal psychological and emotional projections. Editor: Making it seem like, not only is this scene of Romantic angst forever etched in monochrome on paper, but so is an actual little chunk of lived existence as a human, dealing with emotions... in such silly awkward ways! Curator: Indeed, Boilly managed to crystallize the human condition through this Romantic lens. We see a world struggling between private emotion, societal observation, and an awareness of dark forces just beneath the surface of everyday life. Editor: Ultimately, a wonderfully unsettling snapshot of a moment lost in time, that can't help but evoke a bit of discomfort with how far and yet not at all too far away we are, here, from it now!