Columns of the Temple of Juno, Girgenti 1913

Curator: Joseph Pennell’s print, "Columns of the Temple of Juno, Girgenti," created in 1913. The work offers us a glimpse of the Temple of Juno ruins in Agrigento, Sicily. Editor: Wow, there's such a powerful sense of melancholic grandeur here. The ruined columns reaching up into the sky, sketched with these incredibly active pencil lines – it feels like the stones themselves are whispering secrets. Curator: Pennell's work is particularly interesting because he was known for depicting architectural subjects and cityscapes with a modern, almost industrial sensibility. This image of the Temple of Juno departs slightly in favor of a deeper romanticism. Editor: I agree. It almost has a dreamlike quality. Look at the heavy contrast, with its solid dark pillars looming as shadows that draw your eyes into its mysterious atmosphere, inviting reflection. It reminds us of time’s relentless, transforming hand, on both nature and society. Curator: He produced this image, which feels traditional in some ways, in an era where new avant-garde artistic movements such as cubism were already in full bloom. The Temple of Juno was and remains a symbol. We see that the romantic aesthetic surrounding ruins can serve the symbolic function to legitimize power structures. In the early 20th century, ruins and landscapes began to transform into political and cultural icons and commodities. Editor: True, though for me it comes back to that intense emotional reaction to something aged, crumbling, beautiful and sad. A primal story. You know? Standing here imagining the builders, priests, celebrants… then the slow decline and inevitable collapse of human glory! Melodramatic, I know. But, that's art isn't it? Curator: Exactly. Pennell offers us a document but he also provides the feeling. This pencil drawing then opens to something larger, some deeper connection between past and present. Editor: Definitely. You walk away pondering what survives and the nature of art's witness to all that vanishes.