Ornamental letters LD 

Curator: This ink drawing is entitled "Ornamental letters LD" by Hans Thoma. It's currently held in the Städel Museum collection. What's your initial take on it? Editor: There's something wonderfully grotesque about it! These hybrid figures, almost monstrous, intertwined with lettering. I’m immediately thinking about how societal fears about bodies, and class can be played with through artistic depiction. Curator: It's fascinating how Thoma merges the decorative with the figurative here. It reminds us of the skilled craftsmanship involved in creating lettering—especially before industrial printing became widespread. Who decides how letters are designed and what makes it appealing for the wider society? Editor: Absolutely! The choice of hybrid, monstrous forms brings up issues around power and otherness. The physical contortions they make to fit or embody the letters – does that speak to ways marginalized groups are forced to adapt in oppressive systems? It opens up this space to discuss how typography might reproduce social structures or subvert them. Curator: I like that observation. And notice the contrasting textures achieved with ink – the smooth curves of the letters, the detailed musculature on these imagined beings. Thinking of artistic production, where would Thoma source these supplies? Did his social class allow for the easy aquisition of quality materials? Editor: A great point about material access. I wonder, too, about the context of "LD." Who were the intended viewers? Did it carry any encoded political or social meaning known only to certain groups? Curator: We can certainly speculate! And as for our time together, it has offered insights into art history, societal influences, and the act of making. Editor: Agreed. This artwork certainly sparks a desire to keep asking what hidden ideologies operate within even our supposedly neutral forms of communication.