Amorous Fools c. 19th century

Curator: Ah, yes, Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Pena's "Amorous Fools," held here at the Harvard Art Museums. What a melancholic gathering. Editor: It feels shadowy, almost haunted. The way those figures are rendered, fading into the foliage... it makes me wonder about the materials used. Was it a print? Curator: Indeed. It's a cliché verre. The process involves drawing on a coated glass plate, then using it as a negative to create a print. Editor: Glass, interesting. So, light becomes a crucial tool. It's about industrial reproduction meets the artist's hand. Curator: Exactly! It's a dance between spontaneity and control. The figures, though, seem lost in their own private grief. Lovers scorned perhaps? Editor: Or maybe, a commentary on how love itself is manufactured. The glass plate a sort of…mold. These figures are copies of a feeling, not the feeling itself. Curator: I love that! A cynical viewpoint indeed, but it gives us much to ponder. Editor: Art always brings us back to the means and modes of reproduction, doesn't it? Even the emotional ones.