Ansicht von Massa di Carrara 21 - 1825

Ernst Fries made this drawing of Massa di Carrara with graphite on paper sometime in the early 19th century. The choice of graphite is interesting. As a material, it embodies a tension between precision and looseness. Note the delicate, almost ethereal quality of the lines, capturing the scene with a light touch. Yet, graphite is also a material of industry, used in pencils for architectural and engineering drawings, even in the crucibles that process raw materials into goods. Consider, too, what Fries is depicting: the town of Massa di Carrara, nestled in a landscape dominated by marble quarries. This region was, and still is, famous for producing some of the world’s most prized marble, used in sculpture and architecture for millennia. The drawing is thus inextricably linked to the hard labor of quarrying and the global trade in luxury materials. Fries uses graphite to mediate between the natural landscape and the extraction of value from the earth. This drawing invites us to consider not only the aesthetic beauty of the Italian landscape, but also the human labor and economic forces that have shaped it.