The Three Fates 1527 - 1585

Curator: Here we have Luca Cambiaso's ink drawing, "The Three Fates," created sometime between 1527 and 1585. Editor: Oh, wow, what a beautiful, economical use of line. It's sparse, yet utterly evocative. It’s stark. Curator: Stark indeed, perfectly capturing the solemn task of the Fates. In Greek mythology, they control the thread of life, spinning, measuring, and cutting it. This piece offers an intimate glimpse into that unseen labor. It speaks to the anxieties that haunted the Renaissance – about destiny, time, and human control. Editor: It's all process. These tools are essential – spindles, threads, the act of cutting itself – it’s about production. What's fascinating to me is how Cambiaso focuses on the making. It pushes against the conventional boundaries. Curator: You can almost hear the whirring of the spindle and the snip of the shears, right? Consider that even this ethereal concept is being created in material reality: through the ink, the pressure on the page, the very conscious decision to render them thusly... it sort of demystifies fate, if you catch my meaning. It turns them from mystical, invisible beings into laborers, makers in themselves. Editor: Absolutely. I think people often ignore how ingrained craft is within "high art." Here, we’re given these figures almost as factory workers on a grand scale. There’s so much emphasis on the actual materials. What quality of ink, what was the paper being produced for, all very central to its existence. Curator: Do you feel there is a beauty or even some comfort in this rendition of fates at work? Because when I view it, despite its darkness, there's such care given, right? Such care embedded into each movement and character's gaze that a kind of resigned...acceptance is portrayed. As if destiny is the materialization of all actions. Editor: Maybe! It's also tempting to see this through a 21st-century lens. If art holds inherent labor, the figures within these sketches have a unique material connection to a Renaissance period of making. Thank you! Curator: Thanks! It definitely leaves one contemplating how we can best use what little thread we’ve been allotted.