Begrafenis van saters in een bos 1705 - 1771

Editor: This is "Begrafenis van saters in een bos" – "Funeral of Satyrs in a Forest," dating from around 1705-1771, by Balthasar Sigmund Setletzky. It’s a mixed media work, including watercolour, pencil, and what looks like toned paper. It feels theatrical to me, a grand stage for sorrow. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Immediately, I'm drawn to the composition, particularly how Setletzky uses the central architectural structure – perhaps a monument or elaborate fountain – as a focal point, anchoring the scene. The surrounding figures and landscape elements, with their soft watercolor washes, create a spatial dynamic, guiding the eye inward. Note also the use of line; observe the details which imply volume and movement with a stark confidence of mark making that has us moving between the micro and macro-aesthetic effects of the piece. Editor: That's interesting! I was focusing on the narrative aspect, the supposed "funeral". How does the arrangement affect our perception? Curator: Semiotically, we can read the positioning of elements – the central monument, the lamenting figures, the bordering trees – as creating a dialectic, the architectural mass versus emotional response; and the ordered world in front and nature in the rear creating the semiotic reading we can recognize to interpret what that means for Setletzky and ourselves.. Setletzky seems more concerned with aesthetic balance and internal coherence. Does that resonate for you, based on our analysis? Editor: Yes, I think so. I was so caught up in trying to understand the "story" of the funeral, that I initially missed seeing how skillfully everything is arranged and the way light plays around the space. I see this image now as a kind of stage in and of itself; like Setletzky's arranging characters. Curator: Precisely. Our formalist examination perhaps enables us to move closer toward Setletzky's compositional intentions, or better understand them with these conceptual vocabularies in mind..