Projet d'illustration pour Macbeth-12 

Curator: This evocative pencil drawing is entitled Projet d'illustration pour Macbeth-12 by Luc-Olivier Merson. Editor: It's quite somber. The limited tonal range creates a ghostly effect. I am curious about the rigid geometry in contrast to the softness of the figure. Curator: Absolutely. Merson masterfully employs line to construct a visually arresting composition. Observe how the receding planes of the architecture are built from distinct segments. Note the precise hatching that suggests form, and how each brick, though merely sketched, adheres to rigorous logic. Editor: That rigor reinforces the heavy mood, doesn’t it? Considering its function as a stage design, it's brilliant how he uses architectural symbols, especially the arched doorway and what seems to be a heavy tower. There's an implication of history, of burdened secrets. The figure in the scene looks like it is leaning into the tower with exhaustion. Curator: Indeed. While the composition clearly utilizes diagonal and orthogonal lines, observe the absence of the character's relation to their background through contour overlap. How is this meaningful for you? Editor: Perhaps it signifies a disconnection? She appears isolated from this monumental stone world; vulnerable. She leans into a frame suggestive of classical and formidable architectural orders as if bearing a tragic weight of responsibility. Shakespeare of course. Curator: A potent interpretation. I note also that it leaves the left quarter almost entirely blank, save for those initialed blocks in the lower corner; a stark contrast that pulls the viewer into a very clear understanding of figure-ground relation in space and content. Editor: Which gives her isolation an even more haunting effect, almost as though history itself, like that blank facade, has no answer for her actions. The ghost is made present in negative space. I will consider Merson’s stagecraft of dread with this haunting narrative strategy in mind. Curator: An unsettling vision that's carefully built. Editor: And masterfully considered as it invites symbol and iconographic expression into this liminal vision.