Reindeer, from Quadrupeds series (N41) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes 1890

Curator: This drawing, a print with watercolor details titled "Reindeer," hails from Allen & Ginter's "Quadrupeds" series dating to around 1890, currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: Stark! The composition, bifurcated in this rather unusual way, creates a visual dissonance – that division nearly cleaves the artwork in two, a hunter above, reindeer below. Curator: Precisely. Let’s consider its origin as a collectible cigarette card insert. The seemingly unrelated images serve promotional ends: they are signifiers of leisurely activity and consumption habits amongst other images in a related series of the firm Allen & Ginter. Editor: Even accepting its function, though, that bold horizontal line cutting across the landscape is an aesthetic choice, yielding a surprising flattening of space. Observe how the artist contrasts the detailed reindeer in the foreground with the sketch-like quality of the mountainous backdrop. The color palettes also subtly shift – muted earth tones versus the cool blues and greens. Curator: And don't forget that the artist depicts reindeer from a distinctly Western perspective for mass consumption, framed as a conquest that mirrored imperial ambitions of the period. It highlights how even images seemingly depicting neutral fauna could be laden with social and political ideology. The very act of labeling, cataloging, and consuming such imagery reinforces a worldview. Editor: It makes sense within that lens! This lens heightens awareness of the visual narrative and helps highlight not just the animals represented, but also the historical conditions of producing the image. Curator: Indeed. Looking at this simple cigarette card through a Materialist lens truly shifts one’s comprehension of visual dynamics and their intersection within a nexus of labor, mass-production, consumption and cultural encoding. Editor: Yes, now considering this print through both sets of concerns deepens my appreciation of what at first seemed a disconnected assemblage of imagery; each aspect serves the totality, yet the effect is subtly unsettling.