Romulus en Remus worden in de Tiber gegooid 1572 - 1573

Curator: Here we have Giovanni Battista Fontana's pen and ink drawing, "Romulus en Remus worden in de Tiber gegooid," dating back to 1572-1573. It depicts a rather pivotal moment, as you might gather from the title. Editor: My immediate impression is one of raw, almost frantic energy. The lines are incredibly fine yet convey a scene of intense action. You can almost feel the cool, damp air and the weight of those figures being carried. What material details particularly strike you about this engraving? Curator: I see how that frenetic style evokes the story. This is no simple abandonment, but a desperate act with momentous implications. The throwing of Romulus and Remus into the Tiber is fraught with symbolic weight – a foundation myth carrying anxieties about lineage, power, and fate. Editor: Precisely. Looking closer at Fontana's engraving, one notes the labor and skill involved. The fine lines would require dedication, with the choice of ink surely intended for the contrast of textures: human skin, drapery, bark of trees, and stone architecture. I see the artistic intention as not only to record an act but to embody it, to leave a tactile record. Curator: And the landscape itself almost echoes the drama unfolding, with its looming city and the implied presence of the wolf, Lupa. The landscape is not merely a backdrop; it's a stage upon which this act of primal violence and subsequent salvation will unfold. A potent emblem of the landscape as active agent in a social process. Editor: That is well stated. I see it not as static representation but active construction; it reminds us of labor and place. Even in this fabricated, carefully constructed image, we feel that sense of making a world. It shows that history is constructed, negotiated, materially worked into existence. Curator: This truly reminds us of the narratives we create and then carry forward to shape identity and meaning across generations. I had not thought so literally of material and action becoming legend. Editor: And perhaps we, too, participating in its retelling, leave our mark. The material world continues and, whether in artifact or experience, we've altered it with our labor, insight, or experience.