Design for a Stage Set 1830 - 1890

Editor: This is Eugène Cicéri's "Design for a Stage Set," dating from sometime between 1830 and 1890, residing here at the Met. The artist employed watercolor, coloured pencil, and print. What I find fascinating is seeing how he combined mediums to create this layered effect, juxtaposing a seemingly natural scene against architectural elements. What strikes you about this piece? Curator: I am drawn to the very *thingness* of this stage design. Note the visible grid, the pencil marks, the sense of construction. It reveals the labor involved in creating theatrical illusion. Instead of being seamless, it lays bare the processes of production, doesn’t it? Think of the social hierarchy of theatre production; each material embodies that labour. Editor: It’s like he is exposing the artifice of it all, right? He uses watercolor for that branch extending across the design. It makes me wonder if he intended a distinction between the “real” materials of construction and the illusionistic representation of nature? Curator: Exactly! What do the coloured pencils and watercolor *do* here that traditional oil painting, a "high art" medium, couldn't? Their relative affordability and ease of use made theatrical design more accessible, didn't they? Consider too that theatre entertained the rising bourgeois class; how did Cicéri respond to this expanding patronage through his work? Editor: So, by highlighting the ‘making of,’ Cicéri acknowledges both the labor and the audience for whom that labor is performed? Curator: Precisely. By showing us *how* the magic happens, he’s inviting us to think about the entire social network that makes theatre – and art – possible. He blurs the lines between craft and “high art”, questioning those divisions. Editor: That’s such a great point. I've never considered stage design through the lens of material accessibility before. Curator: And hopefully, now you will.