Ceres and Proserpine n.d.

Curator: This is Joshua Cristall's drawing, "Ceres and Proserpine." It's rendered in ink and chalk on paper. Editor: There's a serene and somewhat dreamlike quality. The figures, rendered with delicate lines, seem almost weightless in this landscape. Curator: Cristall, a key figure in the English watercolor school, was deeply engaged with classical themes. Look at the careful line work. He's employing a drawing style that was integral to academic training. Editor: The materiality of the piece speaks to its function. This isn’t necessarily meant as a finished piece, but something produced to explore classical narratives and ideal forms. I am more concerned with its representation through line; look how minimal it is. Curator: Consider how the reproductive printmaking industry further disseminated such classical motifs. Drawings like these served as models, feeding the appetite for accessible art amongst a growing middle class. These subjects reflect the era’s tastes and social values. Editor: Precisely. The line directs our focus and determines the aesthetic outcome. There's also the contrast between the bare figures of Ceres and Proserpine and the natural landscape—an interesting interplay of organic form and idealized human shape. The cloud with three faces on top adds a mythological element. Curator: This mythological cloud alludes to the Roman mythological themes from the ancient world. The image also highlights an important link between mythological subject matter and the domestic lives of the consumer classes that bought prints and drawings like this. Editor: Examining such artworks enables us to view more generally the relationship of aesthetic pleasure and class relations within print media and its influence on artistic practices. The understated drawing becomes more dynamic through this examination. Curator: Absolutely. And Cristall’s work reveals how those historical and material processes were interwoven in art and life. Editor: Yes, exactly. It brings clarity to what the function of academic drawings and prints could accomplish, aesthetically and commercially.