Place Vendome 

Editor: This is Edouard Cortes's oil painting, Place Vendome. I am struck by the golden light reflected on the wet street. How do you approach understanding a painting like this? Curator: Looking at the materials, the use of impasto creates texture, reflecting the materiality of the city itself. Consider the conditions of artistic labor: Cortes mass-produced similar scenes for a growing art market. How does the repetitive subject matter influence its value? Editor: So, is the mass production a commentary on the changing urban landscape itself, becoming increasingly commodified? Curator: Precisely! The painting documents a rapidly modernizing Paris, increasingly shaped by industrial capitalism and consumerism. The very act of painting this scene becomes part of that system. What can we infer about the status of 'art' when its production is market-driven? Editor: I hadn't thought about it in terms of commodification before. So the materials and the method are just as important as the scene itself. It kind of pulls back the curtain on the myth of the solitary artistic genius, doesn't it? Curator: It does, indeed. It grounds art within the material conditions of its creation and circulation. Seeing art this way is important, since paintings, despite what some believe, don't magically appear from a single mind; there's a system, labour, material, all interwoven into its making. Editor: This has definitely changed my perception; it is no longer a beautiful scene, but also a historical document, the artifact of the market-oriented labour. Curator: Exactly. Art as material culture.