Houten reliëf van een deur van de Collégiale Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais te Gisors, voorstellend twee heiligen en een engel c. 1875 - 1900

Curator: Hello. Editor: This is a photograph of a wooden relief, circa 1875-1900, depicting two saints and an angel. It's described as being from a door of the Collégiale Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais in Gisors. What stands out to me is the incredible detail achieved in the wood carving. What are your thoughts on this image? Curator: Given my perspective, it is critical to explore how materials, production techniques, and social implications interact within a seemingly 'simple' photograph reproduction of late 19th-century wooden relief of doors that mimic a much earlier artisanal aesthetic, potentially obscuring as much it is showcasing. The photograph itself should be treated as a production of sorts: the carving itself may allude back to religious narratives that uphold material conditions of certain classes of people at the time. What considerations do you have? Editor: The reference to mimicking of an aesthetic and "obscuring as much it showcases" is interesting. Can you say a bit more about it? Are you suggesting a critique of labor or a commentary on industrial progress of sorts? Curator: It could definitely be about the exploitation of labour! For instance, consider the act of meticulously recreating a medieval style. Who was doing the carving and for what reasons? How was it paid for, consumed? What social class did this imagery appeal to during the Victorian era, and how does it function discursively within religious frameworks in society? Further questions should then concern the relationship to high and low art. Editor: That is a lot to think about. I guess I initially saw only the craftsmanship and the seemingly traditional, perhaps even romantic subject matter of an older wooden relief, and did not consider the means by which it came into being and what conditions enabled its production. Curator: Precisely! Now we can appreciate the reproduction and what is reproduced even further. Editor: This has totally reframed how I view such works going forward. Thanks for your insight.