Reproductie van een prent uit Civitates Orbis Terrarum before 1881

Editor: This is a reproduction of a print from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, dating from before 1881. It's an engraving and seems to be landscape oriented. I'm struck by the contrast between the ornate borders and the depictions of landscapes with laboring figures. How do you approach a piece like this? Curator: I see here the intersection of artistic production and the documentation of burgeoning capitalism. Look at the medium itself, the engraving: a repeatable image, a commodity. The "landscape" isn't just scenery, but a depiction of resources and the early organization of labour extracting them. Consider the historical context, the means of production and the raw materials needed to produce this engraving: the engraver's tools, paper, and ink. Editor: So you see it as more than just a pretty picture. Curator: Precisely! We have to look at who commissioned it, who created it, and who consumed it. These cityscapes often idealized, but within that idealization we see the economic relationships of the time made visually concrete. The act of reproducing these landscapes made the expansion of trade accessible to a wider audience, thus reinforcing existing power structures. Does understanding the image's process affect your view of the imagery depicted within? Editor: Absolutely. Focusing on the "how" and "why" of its creation really pulls back the curtain. I guess I often focus on the finished product, not so much how that object came to exist within its world. Thanks! Curator: Indeed. It reveals so much more about not just the artist's intention, but also about the cultural and economic systems in which they operated. Focusing on materiality offers new avenues into artworks, broadening how we conceptualize artistic creation.