Full Dress, Infantry, Italy, 1886, from the Military Series (N224) issued by Kinney Tobacco Company to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1888

Curator: This image, created in 1888, is titled "Full Dress, Infantry, Italy, 1886," and comes to us from the Kinney Tobacco Company's Military Series. It was part of a larger set of prints designed to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. Editor: Right off the bat, I'm struck by the almost…dreamlike quality. The colors are muted, yet there’s a clear attention to detail in the uniform's design and the soldier’s somewhat melancholy expression. It's like a memory, hazy but vivid. Curator: Precisely. Observe how the artist uses line and color to delineate form. The sharp lines of the rifle juxtapose against the softer shading on the uniform, creating a dynamic tension. Note also the strategic placement of red accents – at the cap, collar, sleeve design and leg line– drawing the eye across the composition and punctuating the otherwise grey-blue field. This elevates it beyond a mere depiction, investing the print with a graphic sophistication, worthy of note. Editor: The soldier's stance too-- almost relaxed. A weird contrast between this beautifully ornate uniform and the mundane duty of holding a rifle. He looks less like a fierce warrior and more like… someone waiting for a bus, albeit in much fancier attire. There’s something subtly unsettling about that dissonance, which kinda stays with you. Curator: Indeed. The work provides an important lens to scrutinize semiotic and visual communication tactics used at the time, specifically advertising that capitalized on notions of patriotism and duty in connecting with their consumers, or audiences. In addition to those formal considerations I outlined before. Editor: It makes you think about the glamorization of war, I mean you look at this card, this image, and almost forget the real dirt and tragedy that actually exist somewhere far away, that have been purposefully extracted in order to push a completely different agenda. . Curator: True. I mean, the artwork, presented within a framework, engages historical awareness by underscoring themes that pertain to history, representation, and visual encoding through drawing, and print. The color story too... So considered... Editor: Yes. The thing is it also triggers a thought that maybe this soldier isn’t who or what he actually is, because somewhere along the line, something in him was purposefully repressed or extracted for consumption in someone else’s reality. Just thinking out loud really. Anyway, its beautiful nonetheless.