Le Colère mêlée de crainte (from Caractères des passions, gravés sur les desseins de l'illustre Monsieur le Brun) 1695 - 1720

Editor: This drawing, made sometime between 1695 and 1720 by Sèbastien Le Clerc, entitled *Le Colère mêlée de crainte,* captures faces contorted by extreme emotions, using engraving to carve out these expressions. They feel both theatrical and…a little frightening, I must say! What strikes you when you look at it? Curator: Frightening, yes! But isn't there also something intensely… human about them? These aren't just lines on paper; they’re glimpses into the raw turbulence of the soul, aren’t they? Like windows into moments we'd perhaps rather avoid. Think about what Le Brun—whose designs inspired these engravings—was trying to do. Editor: I see what you mean; it’s like a study of the most dramatic emotional states. Why capture them at all, I wonder? Curator: Maybe to understand them, to categorize them, to control them, perhaps? Or maybe to unleash them in the safety of art! What do you think is most compelling about the line work itself? The wiry intensity of each stroke. Editor: The lines do give it so much tension; they emphasize the wrinkled brows, the flared nostrils… It almost feels performative, like observing actors on a stage. Curator: Precisely. There's a certain drama, isn't there? Almost like the Baroque itself is screaming from the paper. Each furrow and curve a carefully orchestrated element of an emotional symphony, if you will. This, I think, reminds me how turbulent and poetic art can be. Editor: Definitely a performance, like raw humanity caught on stage. Thanks for illuminating this work!