Penelope 1780

Editor: This is "Penelope," a drawing by Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki from 1780, at the Rijksmuseum. It's an engraving, and feels intimate, like a stolen moment of domestic life. What strikes me is how contained the scene is, almost claustrophobic despite the window. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Ah, intimacy's a lovely word here. It does feel as though we're peeking, doesn't it? To me, Chodowiecki captures something profoundly human in Penelope’s quiet industry. Consider the artistic context: It’s 1780; Romanticism is stirring, and a focus on individual feeling rises. Yet, here's Penelope, engaged in what seems a very practical, almost mundane task. Doesn't the dedication to the present belie the emotional undercurrents of Romanticism? Or perhaps feed into them in some way? Editor: I see what you mean about that "mundane task", however her face appears almost pained by such precise labor. Do you feel her mood is influenced at all by Homer's Penelope? Curator: Ooh, now there’s a juicy question! One might be easily convinced she isn’t pleased to embroider. Maybe this image asks the viewer, in her time, what they know of craft, what that says of their interiority, perhaps. But look closer: The composition traps us, it traps her within the vertical lines of the columns and gridded panes. Do these constraints inspire meaning? What do they invoke in us? Editor: It's all those lines pressing down. Now, her diligence almost feels like imprisonment rather than domesticity. A burden. Curator: Precisely! Chodowiecki provokes the viewer into this kind of consideration, no? What begins as observation becomes inward looking. Is this print now speaking about Penelope or of ourselves, of humanity as a whole? Editor: I'd never thought of it that way! The drawing becomes less about the subject and more about how it makes *me* feel. I now get to take the artist’s idea further for myself! Thank you. Curator: It’s my pleasure, you may be on to something that’s much bigger now! I now understand art's endless possibilities; how beautiful!