Tarantella, Naples c. 1870

Curator: This is Giorgio Sommer's "Tarantella, Naples," a photograph capturing a scene in, well, Naples! It resides in the Harvard Art Museums. The print's sepia tones give it such an antiquated feel. What's your take? Editor: It feels staged but so alive! The eye is drawn immediately to that central dancing couple, their gestures so theatrical. And I love the looming presence of Vesuvius in the backdrop—a constant reminder of nature's volatile power! Curator: The tarantella dance itself, legend has it, was a frantic attempt to sweat out the poison from a tarantula bite. Sommer's image, though, seems less about terror and more about tradition. Editor: Absolutely, it's a performance, a carefully constructed image of Italian identity for a tourist audience. The musician with the tambourine, the monk observing—it’s a tableau of Neapolitan life. Curator: Do you think that by creating this tableau, that it's inauthentic to the culture? Editor: Not inauthentic, I think, but self-consciously representative. It’s a portrait, and portraits always involve a degree of artifice, right? Curator: True, and what's more interesting to me is how it speaks to a long history of performative culture. Editor: Indeed, Giorgio Sommer's photograph doesn't merely capture a scene but rather curates a story, a visual narrative rich with cultural symbolism.