Study for a Festival Machine 1680 - 1785

Editor: Here we have Laurent Hubert’s "Study for a Festival Machine," sketched sometime between 1680 and 1785, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s a pencil drawing. There’s such a theatrical feeling about it, almost as if it were capturing a scene on a stage, yet it is strangely incomplete and unfinished. What strikes you when you look at this drawing? Curator: Ah, unfinished dreams, perhaps! For me, it's all about potential. It feels like witnessing the birth of an idea, this madcap contraption about to burst forth and wow the crowds. Hubert's use of line is almost musical, isn’t it? The red chalk giving a structure that pencil softens like shadows. Can’t you just imagine it bathed in light, with music and fireworks and revelry? But why only a drawing – what stopped it being made? Editor: Yes! I hadn't considered the deliberate softness achieved by using pencil with chalk. Maybe funding or a change of heart? It certainly seems like a colossal endeavor and begs the question, where was it to be showcased? Curator: Perhaps it was designed purely to ignite the imagination. I get the sense it's meant more for dreaming than doing. And you are right, can you imagine it towering over, say, a royal square? It's as though Hubert captured the fleeting essence of Baroque exuberance itself. It reminds me of Piranesi, another fabulist in architecture. It's almost more about the "idea" of grandiosity. I think what Hubert really captures is pure spectacle, distilled to its very lines. Isn’t it marvelous? Editor: It's interesting that you bring up the theme of pure spectacle as that completely shifts my interpretation from incompleteness to boundless imagination. Thanks for your insights. Curator: And thank *you* for such wonderful insights. Until next time!