The Sirens 

Editor: Charles Courtney Curran's painting, "The Sirens", seemingly rendered in oil paint, depicts a scene from mythology. I am immediately struck by how the hazy, almost dreamlike, quality contrasts with the literal danger the sirens represent. How do you approach understanding a piece like this? Curator: Looking at "The Sirens" through a materialist lens means asking, what societal structures allowed for this specific imagery to be produced with oil paint? We see a landscape, nudes – classically beautiful figures– and a ship, rendered in soft focus. Consider the late 19th/early 20th century when this likely was made. It was a time of great industrial expansion, which provided the raw materials and manufacturing for producing pigments in tubes, thus permitting painting *en plein air*. Does this new access change how labour operates in fine art? Editor: That's an interesting point; access to materials directly affecting subject and style. The fact that Curran can create *this* piece because he had *those* materials. What impact would academic-style painters, with access to mass produced, industrial materials, have on consumers and popular tastes? Curator: Precisely! Furthermore, who is buying these paintings and what values do they represent? Mythological scenes like this, with their blend of classical ideals and alluring nudes, were highly sought after by a rising bourgeois class, eager to demonstrate their cultural capital and refinement and also… maybe display nude figures in a palatable, artistic way. How does this dynamic of production and consumption affect the very meaning we ascribe to the painting? Editor: I see how focusing on the materials and social context really opens up a discussion about the painting's relationship to its time and the people who made and consumed it. Curator: Indeed, examining the artwork through the lens of production, material, and social factors offers a much more engaged and thoughtful analysis.