Landscape c. 1865 - 1868

Curator: Good day! We're pausing before "Landscape," an etching and engraving by the French artist François-Nicolas Chifflart, likely created between 1865 and 1868. It resides here at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Editor: Right off, it’s somber. Very textural, though—the lines create this almost overwhelming sense of, I don’t know, erosion, maybe? And drama, with the threatening sky pressing down on that solitary hilltop. Curator: Exactly. Chifflart masterfully uses the printmaking techniques to convey Romanticism’s characteristic fascination with nature's power, but it is a nature marked by decay. Observe the way he applies short, choppy strokes, layering them to build form but also suggesting instability. Editor: It's almost… geological. Look at the exposed rock faces, the implied strata. And that void in the foreground pulls the whole thing off kilter. Gives you this odd feeling of precariousness. It's not idyllic. It's raw. Curator: Precisely. Chifflart might have intended it to symbolize the ephemeral quality of human endeavors against geological time scales. Consider the period—the late 1860s in France. A time of great social upheaval, shifts in power...Perhaps he sought to capture that broader instability? Editor: Perhaps, though I also read it as a portrait of the internal landscape. The psychological drama that boils underneath the surface of things. I feel more than see the turmoil, it calls my guts rather than my mind, if that makes sense. Curator: I like that notion a great deal. A deeply introspective portrayal, using the landscape as a mirror... Editor: Thanks! It really is such a small artwork, too, adding an element of intimacy in tension with such grand, imposing elements, I feel like one could look at this thing for hours and still have thoughts arise to make it worthwhile. Curator: And this tension really encapsulate this piece, providing a rich context through which one could view the landscape and indeed consider its relevance for a contemporary public. Editor: Absolutely, there is nothing like taking some extra time for contemplation to appreciate some visual input and expand my thoughts, it is such a treat, after all!