Felsbrocken an einem grasbewachsenen Hang 

Editor: Here we have "Felsbrocken an einem grasbewachsenen Hang" which roughly translates to "Boulder on a grassy slope" by Franz Kobell, an etching rendered in ink. I’m struck by the contrast between the densely etched boulder and the more delicate grasses. What’s your take on it? Curator: Well, notice how the density of line is almost solely what constructs volume and texture? Kobell's labour with the etching needle—the sheer physical act of mark-making—becomes the subject itself, a study of materiality. The social context is interesting: landscape art becoming popular and, at the same time, the rise of industrialized printmaking. Was this made for aesthetic appreciation or for a burgeoning print market? Editor: So you’re saying that its value is tied to the labor and potential mass consumption implied by the printmaking process? It also seems like the materials really dictated how the image would be constructed... the density is only achieved by so many repetitive lines, for example. Curator: Precisely. Think about how landscape paintings often romanticized nature. Here, however, we have an exploration of process, revealing the artificiality inherent in representation. What is labor without landscape, or landscape without the manual labor involved in its creation as an art object? Also, are we even meant to see beauty, or just understand that stone as object is constructed from nothing but a repeated process? Editor: That’s a perspective shift! So instead of pure landscape, it's commenting on its own manufactured existence and consumption... that changes everything. Curator: Exactly! What have you discovered that's interesting, based on this approach? Editor: Considering how the artist translated the natural landscape into a manufactured item gives the work a completely new depth. I’ll never look at landscape etchings the same way!