Sarcophagus with Judgement of Paris n.d.

Curator: This is an intriguing drawing, rendered in chalk on paper, titled "Sarcophagus with Judgement of Paris". Editor: The reddish-brown chalk gives it a sense of warmth, but the quick, almost frantic lines convey a feeling of unease. The composition is dense, figures jostling for space. It feels unfinished, but energetically so. Curator: It is currently held at the Art Institute of Chicago. Looking at the historical context of the artwork, it becomes a piece deeply intertwined with notions of taste, beauty, and power. Editor: And of labor! Consider the physicality involved in creating this on paper, laying down chalk with varying degrees of pressure. There is skill evident, but how much artistic license were they actually allowed? How do the circumstances affect the form and content of this particular rendition of the myth? Curator: Right, that makes one wonder what its original commission was; for practice? Or, perhaps as part of a larger commission meant for public display of taste and access for certain elites to antiquity? It's about establishing a lineage, a visual vocabulary accessible only to some. The myth is also being deployed to suggest qualities about the person it commemorates, possibly wisdom, justice, but undoubtedly a level of cultivated knowledge. Editor: It also draws on a visual lineage, doesn’t it? How does its formal qualities mimic previous "masters" of history painting, and other mythological renderings to assert itself as another entry in an existing, even authoritative body of work? How are past ways of illustrating the "Judgement of Paris" built upon? What is the material implication here? Curator: Well, the style has a strong French lineage; that’s certainly playing out within cultural circles of artistic patronage. We see the politics of image making at work. The composition is carefully structured with each character placed to subtly tell the viewer how this all might speak to current-day royal tastes or sociopolitical debates of that moment. The image acts as both a looking glass into contemporary affairs and an aspirational emblem. Editor: The immediacy of the chalk, the stark line work feels at odds with the lofty themes they evoke. This artwork’s place in our institutions encourages us to rethink definitions and social constructs that might still inform today’s value judgments of art and material worth. Curator: Absolutely, understanding how "Sarcophagus with Judgement of Paris" functioned then provides us some perspective when critically assessing its presentation to a wider public today.