Dirce 1793 - 1838

Curator: Here we have "Dirce," an engraving created between 1793 and 1838 by Angelo Bertini after Antonio Canova. Editor: It strikes me immediately by its cool serenity, that flowing line. The figure reclining, almost floating... It is a composition of elegant repose. Curator: Indeed. Note the choice of engraving. Consider the labor involved in producing multiple copies of such a delicate image. This speaks to a market—an expanding audience keen on disseminating and consuming neoclassical ideals. It flattens the original marble's three-dimensionality. Editor: But the starkness of line directs the eye to appreciate form—the languid posture, the turn of her head, how the drapery both conceals and reveals. Notice, too, how the hatching of the engraving defines muscle and shadow with such precision. It’s pure form! Curator: Yet form is always ideological. "Dirce," a mythological figure, here becomes a commodity, a symbol reproduced and distributed within a particular social and economic system. This is Neoclassicism in the age of revolution, transformed through printing for mass appeal. Look at the materials involved—the ink, the paper. All playing a part in how this sculpture exists in the world beyond Canova's studio. Editor: I grant that its historical placement matters, but focus again on line—it is dynamic despite the stasis of the scene. The subject almost dissolves into a dream state—distant. Almost cold! And look at her gaze; she sees beyond us and that, perhaps, makes her aloof. Curator: But that "aloofness" you mention can be also thought about in regards to who had access to the figure. How did circulation, how did that level of reproduction change perception of Canova and neoclassical artistic taste across Europe? What type of knowledge was created through that dissemination? That is a whole process worth examining further. Editor: Yes, those considerations matter. Even so, I leave captivated by the sheer refinement of the engraver's craft—the way a series of lines births the illusion of texture, weight, volume...a perfect dance of light and shade. Curator: An apt summation. A web of manufacture and visual expression is, without a doubt, here elegantly and clearly woven.