Nimf vlucht weg voor sater 1905

Curator: Henri Fantin-Latour's pencil drawing, "Nymph Fleeing from a Satyr," created in 1905, invites us to consider themes of escape and desire, a classic theme rendered in the soft medium. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: There's an ethereal quality to it. The nymph seems to almost dissolve into the landscape. I wonder what material properties allow such an ethereal look in drawing. Curator: The apparent lack of fixative here may be responsible for the loose nature of the particles in the work and that sense of "dissolving" may indeed relate to the instability of the material, the pencil lead. Symbolically, Latour connects her body to landscape. This, for Latour, becomes a metaphor for transformation; is there not something intrinsically transformational when an artist like Latour draws the feminine form using minerals mined and shaped into a malleable, yet breakable writing stick? Editor: I’m drawn to how the light and shadow play across the nymph’s body, giving it this dynamic energy, her posture; such deliberate compositional structure here! See her reaching out with those gesture and the implied line. There seems to be an interesting play between capturing motion and form with a seemingly still and static medium such as pencil, there’s a very satisfying contrast between light and dark values here. Curator: The reproductive processes available to Latour at this time have important bearing on the availability of pencil drawings for wide audiences, particularly drawing reproductions in mass media. Pencils were themselves undergoing stages of industrialization and becoming a medium of production of individual artistic expression. The context surrounding the industrial availability and circulation of the drawing must have shaped the very artistic process that Fantin-Latour undertook here in 1905. Editor: It makes you reflect on art that moves. This piece really allows one to appreciate the symbolic use of visual composition that has an affect, and reflects feeling using tonal value and motion on a static image. Curator: Indeed, seeing this, with these perspectives in mind can change our relationship with the materiality of pencil drawing. Editor: A great look at symbolism and technique!