Two Alternate Designs for a Doorway 1700 - 1780

This delicate drawing, made with graphite on paper, presents two potential designs for a doorway. Though the artist is unknown, the drawing provides a window into the labor and skill required to create architectural ornamentation. The doorway designs are replete with classical motifs – statues, busts, urns, and ornate scrolls. These elements would likely have been carved from stone by skilled artisans. The act of carving, removing material to reveal form, demands precision and control. The doorway’s very construction necessitates a whole suite of specialized trades: quarrying, transporting, carving, and masonry, all hard, physical work. Consider how the material—stone—with its inherent weight and density, dictates the scale and presence of the doorway. The intricate details, rendered with graphite, would translate into deeply carved relief. The doorways become not merely functional entryways, but statements of status and taste, monuments to human labor, and the prevailing social order. In recognizing this we challenge a tradition that separates art and craft, conception and execution.