Mountainscape 

Editor: Here we have August Babberger's pastel drawing, *Mountainscape*, which is currently undated and part of the Städel Museum's collection. The layering of blues and greens really makes the scene feel vast and a bit…overwhelming, actually. What can you tell me about how he crafted this? Curator: It’s crucial to understand this piece through its materiality. Consider the nature of pastels. How are they made, what kind of labor does their production entail, and what socioeconomic bracket is consuming such landscapes? Editor: That's... certainly a different approach than I expected. I guess I hadn't considered where the pastels *came from.* Curator: Exactly! Look at the aggressive, almost rushed marks. They betray a certain urgency, a direct engagement with the landscape itself. What does it mean for this landscape to be consumed in this manner? Is this art creation or artistic extraction? What societal processes is he embedded in when observing or recording such scene? Editor: I see your point. The sketchiness, the fleeting quality… It almost feels like he’s trying to capture something before it disappears, like the changing weather in the mountains. And I hadn’t thought of art-making as extraction. Is the *consumption* aspect important here? Curator: Absolutely. Art, like any commodity, operates within systems of production and consumption. Who has access to this landscape, both physically and through its representation in art? What is the social history of landscapes as commodities of exchange? Babberger is employing mass-produced material to render mass-impressions of an ideal, something reproducible for distribution. It challenges conventional understanding of value creation of hand-made works. Editor: I suppose that adds a new layer to how I see the "impressionistic" quality. It's not just about capturing a feeling, it’s about how that feeling is produced and distributed. I never really considered that! Curator: Precisely. Seeing the materiality, production and socio-economic landscape of artmaking allows you to contextualize what artworks attempt and achieve, how we should evaluate works of this time, as commodities but not trophies. Editor: Thanks, that was really insightful; I’ll definitely be thinking about the *Mountainscape* and other artworks through that lens from now on.