Design for a Stage Set 1830 - 1890

Editor: This is Eugène Cicéri's "Design for a Stage Set," made sometime between 1830 and 1890. It's a charcoal and pencil drawing, pretty moody with all that gray. It’s… very dramatic. What leaps out at you? Curator: Leaps… ah, well, those craggy, theatrical rocks, of course! Cicéri was a master of Romantic stage design. I wonder what fantastical play these stones were destined to frame? Think of it—gaslights flickering, velvet curtains, a heroine about to make her entrance! It’s more than a drawing; it’s a portal to a lost theatrical world. Don't you feel that pull? Editor: Definitely! The landscape has a gothic, almost haunted, feel. Stage design—it's like a painting, but for a performance! Was stage design considered "high art" back then, like paintings displayed in a salon? Curator: A brilliant question! Back then, darling, boundaries were blurrier. Stage design held immense power. The visual spectacle enhanced, amplified, the dramatic narrative. And a painter like Cicéri… he brought painterly skills, creating atmosphere with charcoal and light. Tell me, what sort of story would *you* set in front of that backdrop? Editor: Something brooding, maybe about a banished king returning to reclaim his throne! The jagged rocks feel so ominous. Curator: Precisely! You feel it, the power of place. It's all suggestion, hinting at unseen dramas. And that's where the magic lies. I am glad that we see this beautiful and unique peace with modern eyes today. Editor: I’ll never look at a stage set the same way again!