Divorce 

Editor: This is "Divorce" by William Holbrook Beard. It looks like an oil painting, and it’s quite striking because the subjects are monkeys dressed as people! The scene looks to be a legal proceeding. What catches your eye about this piece? Curator: Well, beyond the immediate, let's think about what materials signify here. Beard chose oil paint to depict these figures mimicking human society. This very medium, traditionally associated with portraiture of the elite, is used to satirize human institutions. The use of canvas, stretched and primed, also sets up expectations of high art, only to be subverted by the content. Editor: That's a great point, how the material clashes with the subject matter. So, by using this medium, is Beard making a commentary about wealth? Curator: Perhaps, or about labor. Consider who the likely consumers of such a painting were, and the social contexts from which the painting emerges. Whose labor goes into producing not only the image, but the materials with which it’s made: the paints, the canvas, the frame? And what are the implications when the tools and processes of the privileged are employed for, possibly, the purposes of social critique or even just for humorous effect? Does the "high" art medium somehow elevate the status or message of this genre painting? Editor: It does add another layer. Thinking about the labour behind the materials gives a much deeper understanding to the meaning than I initially thought. Curator: Exactly! We're dealing with art as a product of many layers of production, not just individual expression. This shift in perspective impacts how we look at all art. Editor: This has completely changed my initial viewing of the painting and I'll never look at artworks in the same way again. Curator: And that, my friend, is the point of true investigation of artwork.