Hagar 1710 - 1782

Curator: Here we have Joseph Goupy's "Hagar," an etching, dating sometime between 1710 and 1782, currently held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: My initial reaction is somber, isolated, and elemental. The dramatic sky, the blasted tree – it's a stage for tragedy, wouldn't you say? Curator: Absolutely. Goupy is drawing on the biblical story of Hagar, who was cast into the wilderness with her son Ishmael. This composition isn't just a landscape; it's a landscape of exile. You feel Hagar's despair, but I find there is an austere kind of majesty. Editor: It’s interesting you say that because I keep circling back to the way the figure of Hagar, way over there in the lower left, is so minuscule against this immense backdrop. Does that diminish her personal anguish, or amplify it? The scale sort of renders her plight anonymous, somehow part of the broader theater of suffering… Curator: Or perhaps speaks to her resilience within forces larger than herself. We need to keep in mind Goupy, despite being French by birth, worked primarily in England, and English identity during this period found strong roots in both the King James Bible and interpretations of classical landscape, this visual rhetoric becomes key. It's easy to read the divine within the natural world through the aesthetics of someone like Goupy, Editor: But let's look more closely at this gnarled, tortured-looking tree – so prominent in the foreground. For me, this tree practically screams of Romanticism which comes later. Its contorted shape mirrors Hagar's inner turmoil. Curator: An apt reading, though "Romanticism" hadn't fully flowered. But I do think that Goupy masterfully employed Baroque sensibilities. And perhaps points to some of the tensions in this visual lexicon as ideas of ‘the sublime’ begin to develop in visual art.. Editor: I do still see its echo. The whole scene breathes that feeling of vastness, of being overwhelmed by nature and your place in it. Thank you for adding further clarity. I am sure museum goers will connect even deeper because of your comments. Curator: It is our role to delve and observe and share how context matters when we gaze upon artworks such as Goupy's "Hagar." A worthy endeavor!