-Holyrood Palace (mantle clock)- still bank late 19th-early 20th century

Editor: Here we have a charming still bank, shaped like a mantle clock, featuring Holyrood Palace. It's from the late 19th to early 20th century, made of wood and earthenware. I’m struck by the simplicity of its form and the muted color palette. What aspects of its design and execution capture your attention? Curator: Primarily, it's the superimposition of form and function that fascinates me. The object declares itself through a geometry, but subverts that claim immediately: we have a clock-shape but a still-bank intention. Observe the chromatic relationships, the dominance of a unified light umber disrupted only by the darker print work and, in the clockface, cooler intonations of blue. This induces a dialectic; can you see how this tonal distribution emphasizes the contrast of industrial reproduction with a craft orientation? Editor: That's a good point. I hadn't considered the tension between craft and industry in the color. It seems less like a useful clock and more of a… representation of one? A symbol? Curator: Precisely. Focus less on referential value, then. What compositional structures constitute that representational status, considered beyond the level of 'clockness'? Editor: I see what you mean. It's almost like the image of Holyrood Palace anchors it to a specific place and time, even though it's a mass-produced item. Curator: Consider also how the maker manipulated existing codes, and made it fresh by collapsing material boundaries: by imbuing wood with pictorial qualities, and image with depth. Consider that there's a functional relationship happening at a level beyond use-value and consider the semantic value generated. Editor: Thank you, I learned a great deal about form, function, materiality and semantics from this single work! Curator: A successful analysis indeed!