View of Tivoli 1797

Editor: Here we have François Vivares’ "View of Tivoli," currently residing at the Harvard Art Museums. It's rendered in black and white, and the detail is incredible. What draws my eye is the way the artist captured the city on the hill. What do you see when you look at it? Curator: I'm drawn to the materiality of the printmaking process itself. Consider the labor involved in creating these intricate lines, each one etching away at the metal plate. How does this mass-produced image affect our perception of a place like Tivoli, transforming it into a commodity for consumption? Editor: So you are saying it's about making places reproducible? Curator: Exactly! The image becomes separated from the actual experience of the place, mediated by the artist's skill and the printing press's capability. It makes me wonder about the social context of landscape prints like this and how they were bought and sold. Editor: That gives me a completely different perspective than I had before. Thank you!