Soldiers with Heavy Armor 1675

Curator: This is Antoinette Bouzonnet-Stella's "Soldiers with Heavy Armor," held here at the Harvard Art Museums. It's a print, roughly 17 by 41 centimeters. Editor: It feels like I'm watching a stage play of ancient times, somehow both grand and a little claustrophobic. Curator: Exactly! Bouzonnet-Stella was emulating classical bas-relief sculpture, turning a three-dimensional form into a two-dimensional frieze. The procession reads left to right and offers a sense of contained movement. Editor: The figures are so densely packed, it evokes the overwhelming nature of militarism, that rigid sense of conformity. Yet, they’re also individualized, each with their own expression. Curator: The artist really captured the tension between the individual and the collective. Thinking about it, Bouzonnet-Stella was working in a male-dominated field, and she had to be strategic in finding patrons and subjects. Editor: And now, centuries later, we’re still unpacking the strategies and statements within her art. It's a powerful testament to her vision.