The Fall of Gondolin 

Editor: This is Alan Lee's "The Fall of Gondolin." It’s quite a dramatic painting! There’s this figure rising out of the sea, almost made of the sea, set against a stormy sky and lightning. I'm immediately struck by the almost tangible quality of the water, like I could reach out and feel the spray. What do you see in this piece, from your perspective? Curator: I see an interesting tension between romanticism and labor. Lee paints this sublime, powerful figure and landscape, evoking a pre-industrial understanding of nature's overwhelming force. But think about how images like this circulate now, produced through capitalist enterprise. The paper or canvas it's printed on, the digital tools to reproduce and disseminate it, even our viewing of it through museum or personal technologies – all dependent on global labor forces and material extraction. Does appreciating the beauty require a degree of ethical compromise on our part? Editor: That’s a really interesting point I hadn't considered! I was so focused on the mythic and fantastical elements, and the artist's skill. So are you saying that even in appreciating something seemingly timeless, we need to be aware of the material processes that brought it into existence and how that implicates us? Curator: Exactly. Consider how our aesthetic experience is mediated by a web of production. What is lost, or gained, when art detaches itself from the labor of its creation, or the conditions that shape its reception? Can we even fully understand this painting outside of our consumer context? Editor: Wow, that shifts my perspective entirely. I guess seeing art as divorced from its production ignores the very real conditions in which artists and viewers alike exist. Thank you! Curator: My pleasure. It's a continuous process of examining our assumptions. I’ve been enjoying the discussion.