Blick auf die Akropolis in Athen 

Curator: Here we have Ludwig Metz's "Blick auf die Akropolis in Athen," housed here at the Städel Museum. It's rendered with pencil on paper, showcasing his architectural and landscape drawing skills. What are your initial thoughts? Artist: Oh, a breath of antiquity! It’s incredibly light, airy…almost ghostly. The Parthenon shimmers atop the hill, but the overall mood feels more dreamlike than documentary. A very gentle, almost ephemeral quality to the light. Curator: Agreed, the luminosity is striking. It’s intriguing how Metz utilizes such modest materials – simple pencil and paper – to capture a place laden with historical weight. Consider, though, the journey undertaken to create it: paper manufactured, pencil crafted, an artist travelling to Greece... Artist: True. Thinking about that journey... imagine Metz, sitting there with his pad, the same sun beating down on him as beat down on, well, Socrates or Plato! And now his rendering – his *experience* – is here for us to see. It connects us, across time and labour. Curator: Precisely. It allows us to consider the accessibility of the work itself, beyond just the finished product. Did Metz produce this sketch for a patron? For study? Or simply as personal reflection? The materiality, its transportability, allows for different methods of production and potentially consumption... Artist: It makes you wonder what he chose to include, too. Look at the livestock in the foreground, that lovely tree framing the side; those elements ground the grand Acropolis, don't they? Making it almost pastoral. It makes the mighty marble seem approachable. Curator: Definitely. His approach also emphasizes access; a drawing like this democratizes the image of such an iconic site. Before mass reproduction and photography, this was someone’s individual, crafted encounter – available, theoretically, to anyone with access to the artwork. And each choice that Ludwig Metz made impacted that access, his travel choices, paper and pencils purchases... It is really interesting to trace the lineage of production embedded in this landscape scene. Artist: It is lovely to feel his experience of it so tangibly! To see with his hand, almost. It truly collapses the space between us and that ancient hill, between its materials and its monumentality! Curator: I agree, seeing how seemingly mundane tools produce enduring reflections highlights not just the subject but its enduring social and physical connection to its making, Ludwig’s travels, and subsequent cultural contexts.