Growing Family 1793

Curator: I find "Growing Family," a print crafted in 1793 by Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, so very evocative of its time. Editor: Immediately, the word that springs to mind is "contained." The entire scene is framed, almost nestled, within the landscape—nature carefully composing the human narrative within. Curator: Yes, the composition certainly is deliberate. It is just part of a series, actually, a sequence depicting stages of life; and note how Chodowiecki contrasts the stillness of the maternal group with the dynamism of the emerging man. He’s stepping into his own life. Editor: Exactly. The figures create a sort of sculptural frieze, frozen in place by the artist's meticulous engraving, aren’t they? But look at the use of light. Notice how it seems to emanate from the central group, from the women and children. The illumination guides our eyes to read it, to tell ourselves its story, one that reinforces its status as an emblem. Curator: Well, consider also the cultural context. The burgeoning Enlightenment ideals celebrated domesticity, and family. So this piece presents, and reinforces, values that are at the time coming into full flower. Doesn’t it? A mother’s tenderness, children sheltered, the young man dutifully returning to embrace the familial. All rendered with painstaking, if somewhat sentimental, detail. Editor: Sentimental, yes, but the precise lines and the tonal balance ensure a clarity that lifts the image. Its composition lends it the visual rhetoric, and permanence, of an emblem; that speaks, I suppose, to the engraving medium itself, given its capacity for multiplication. Curator: This print's value now perhaps resides less in its overt message and more in its understated depiction of late 18th-century social ideals. Editor: An artwork acting as both reflection and constructor of its epoch. "Growing Family" encapsulates so well, does it not? A tableau vivant for the ages.