The Tower of Babel 1812

Editor: This is Conte Carlo Lasinio’s "The Tower of Babel," at the Harvard Art Museums. The composition, with so many figures, feels both grand and intimate. What do you see in this piece? Curator: It’s as though Lasinio is asking, "What are we reaching for?" Beyond mere height, what’s the human impulse behind such an ambitious, ultimately doomed, project? Is it a striving for immortality, for understanding, or something else entirely? What do you think? Editor: I guess, the desire to be remembered, to leave a mark... Curator: Precisely! And that’s what art does, isn’t it? This print certainly has. Editor: I didn’t think of it that way. Thanks!